501 Spanish Verbs

Rating:
Summary: One of the most helpful spanish books ever written
Review: This book is so awesome, I'm a high school student currently studying spanish and this book has been the factor in passing and failing many tests. It is a very simple layout and totally fool proof. Any one studying spanish should own a copy I've had the book since 8th grade and I'm still using it frequently as a senior in my 5th year of spanish

Rating:
Summary: Must have if you are a serious student
Review: This is a MUST have book!!! for studying spanish. Just Buy IT!!

Rating:
Summary: An Excellent Reference Source
Review: I would like to recommend this book to any student who had ventured past the simple Spanish tenses. It can be used as a grammar guide on its own and is immensely helpful to prepare one for rigorous examinations in high school and college. My favorite features are the sections in the back, such as the "Verbs Used in Idiomatic Expressions" and "Popular Phrases, Words, and Expressions for Tourists."

Rating:
Summary: 501 Spanish Verbs
Review: This is an excellent book. I'm not so sure that the paperback
version will stand the test of time and elements. The work
contains an exhaustive conjugation of almost every important
verb utilized in conversational Spanish, as well as the
literature of Spain and the Americas. This book will help if you
are learning the language for the first time. It's important
to understand the correct grammatical formulations because
there are many tricky exceptions. For instance, the verb
"comer" means to eat. Its conjugations are como, comes, come,
comemos, comeis and comen. The verb volver (to return) is not
so obvious. Its conjugations are vuelvo, vuelves, vuelve,
volvemos, volveis and vuelven. Although the verb "volver" begins
with "vo", the conjugated form begins with "vue". This is one
of many important exceptions in the Spanish language. With
usage, you'll begin to apply the exceptions correctly. This
book is a good reference to help you get started and stay on
track. The work is good for studying the Regents exam in
Spanish, as well as formulating paragraph structures in a
Spanish literature course. The Spanish literature courses
can be difficult because the medieval literature has many
idiomatic words and phrases which have no traceable modern
derivative. Reading "Don Quijote" is very difficult in spots
because of the older idioms and the paucity of their use in
modern Spanish. A strength of this book is that the author
separates the irregular verbal forms for ease of reference.
For beginners, memorization of the irregular forms is the
best option. With repeated use, these forms will become
second nature to you. The conversational Spanish newspapers
are much easier to read than the classical Spanish literature.
Current newspapers and magazines are devoid of the confusing
idioms which are quite common in the older literary works.
Modifiers are a real challenge. Look at the verb "ponerse".
The conjugation of ponerse is:
o me pongo ( I put on or put in place.)
o te pones (you -familiar)
o se pone (you-polite)
o nos ponemos
o os poneis
o se ponen

For a verb like ponerse, memorization or frequent utilization
of the reference guide is preferred . The best way to learn
a foreign language is to study the grammatical formulation,
listen to the language, attempt to write the language and
read conversational articles in the daily papers of the foreign
language involved. At some point, the entire process will gel.
This book is a good purchase because it is complete, easy to
use, relatively cheap and fairly up-to-date. Conversational
Spanish requires much practice so keep this book in a handy
place for ease of reference. You'll need it for sure!
This book has more verbs than previous versions. As such,
it is a better value. In Spanish literature courses, papers
are required. When writing literary critiques in Spanish,
adherence to the grammatical formulations is difficult for
novice writers. Your initial attempts may meet with many
corrections when the paper is read and critiqued by teaching
staff. With practice, there will be fewer corrections except
for an occasional accent or awkward verbal formulation.
Good luck and utilize this text frequently.

Rating:
Summary: A classic for Spanish students of all levels
Review: (By Edward Trimnell, author of "Why You Need a Foreign Language & How to Learn One," ISBN:1591133343)

Let's face it: the verb conjugations are probably the most difficult aspect of learning Spanish.

Spanish vocabulary isn't that difficult for most native English speakers, and Spanish phonetics are mercifully forgiving when compared to French, Russian, or just about any other language. The challenge arrives when you try to master the ins and outs of the Spanish subjunctive, preterit, and compound tenses. And then there are all those irregular verbs.

This book organizes Spanish verb conjugations into a logical layout that makes them easy to learn. Although this book only covers 501 of the thousands of verbs in the Spanish language, the selection is representative, so that the knowledge you gain from this book will enable you to conjugate just about any verb you might ever encounter while speaking Spanish.

Some other useful features of this book are:

-An explanation of each tense. At the beginning of the book, the author explains the significance of the imperfect subjunctive, the pluperfect, etc.

-Related vocabulary notes for each verb. This is a nice touch. While you are learning the verb "buscar," why not also learn the words "el rebuscamiento" and "rebuscar"?

-A list of common idiomatic expressions for major verbs. This isn't an idiom book, but the author has included some useful notes in this area.

I have been studying Spanish since 1984, and I have already worn out two copies of this book. I expect to continue using this volume for another twenty years!

Rating:
Summary: Spanish Verb Bible
Review: This book is a MUST for any serious student of the language. You will never find a better source for looking up and learning the many tenses of any verb. GREAT SERIES.

Rating:
Summary: Bring Back the 4th Edition!
Review: The content of the 3rd, 4th, and 5th editions of 501 Verbs is excellent, and very similar. The 4th edition has exercises in the back that the 3rd does not have. I use the 4th, my husband has used the 3rd and wanted an updated copy with the exercises. I bought the 5th. (10/7/2003) After spending an afternoon working with the book, I have decided to return it. The content, as always, is excellent. But the print and the 2-color presentation are not an improvement; on the contrary. I suffered eyestrain and fatigue after using the book for an hour or so. And I found it to be more difficult to focus on the content with the seemingly faded 2-color presentation. Thus it will be returned. If I cannot obtain a used copy of the 4th edition in good condition, my husband and I will switch copies.
--I suspect that some of the presentation of the book, ie. the faded color of the print, is an attempt at economy. This may be true, also, of the use of the (also faded) red instead of the bold print in previous editions. If so, it is a false economy. I would venture that most people who are interested in 501 Verbs will buy it whether it is $15 or $17 dollars.

Rating:
Summary: Best verb book available
Review: This book is my verb bible. Not only does it cover the most used verbs and their complete conjugations, but it includes loads of other information about the tenses, common uses of each verb, related words based on the verb, practice exercises, and more. If you want a resource for verbs, this is the one.

Rating:
Summary: Pretty Comprehensive
Review: I've had this book for 8 years. It's good. The verbs are arranged in alphabetical order and each verb comprises one full page. It contains the seven simple tenses and the seven compound tenses (i.e., subjunctives and plueperfects) to combine for all 14 uses, including the imperatives. At the bottom of every page there are words listed and defined that are related to the verb on the page. Well worth it.

Rating:
Summary: Good, with a few errors, Jugar, Conocer
Review: This summer I have been taking a very intense spanish for the first time in a very intense 36 college weeks in 32 days format and good reference books are a necessity.
Between the 4th and 5th editions of 501 verbs, they introduced errors into the conjugations for Jugar and Conocer... probably others as well, but those are the first I ran into. For jugar in the "2 imperfecto de indicitavo" tense, the nosotros form says jubabamos (accent on first a) when it should be jugabamos (accent on first a). For conocer, in the "6 presente de subjunctivo" tense, the yo form is listed as conozco when it should be conozca.

As irregular verbs, it is not suprising for a novice to see weird exceptions, but to have them introduced incorectly by your reference book is very frustrating and were it not for the very nice red/black layout, many of us in class would have returned the book and demanded a refund as it appears to be untrustworthy.

An alternative is the Big Red Book of 555 verbs with 2300 other verbs in the back whereas 501 has 1100 (4th ed. only had 1000), while those numbers sound huge, they are not.

Overall a very useful book and much more useful in class than a verb wheel or text book for seeing all the layouts.

A great addition to the book would be a section with regular verb endings and common irregular verb endings in the same layout. perhaps just after the 501 conjugated verbs.

Since I am a first year student, I may not know all the ramifications of such a section, but we have covered 12 tenses and I think there are enough patterns that a 10 or 15 page section would be great.