Practice Makes Perfect: Spanish Verb Tenses

Rating:
Summary: Excellent value and easy to understand
Review: I am a Spanish teacher and I found out about Ms. Richmond's book through another teacher. I immediately bought the book and found it to be very useful in teaching concepts fundamental to Spanish. There were clear, insightful explanations that I had never seen before. As many before me have commented, this book is an excellent value for the money and would be a welcome asset to any teacher's reference library. It would also be an excellent resource for any aspiring student of Spanish because it makes the daunting task of mastering Spanish verbs a much more realistic goal.

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Summary: A must-have for students of the Spanish language!
Review: I have the highest praise for this comprehensive, highly structured, and thoughtfully written workbook. It's a steal for the money, and for anyone with a little self-discipline (I bought this book to complement my learning in a Spanish class), there's no study aid for verbs that's better. It's so good, in fact, that I'm switching out of my current Spanish class into beginners' French! That's how confident I now feel--with the aid of this guide--in my ability to grasp Spanish verbs. Muchas Gracias, Sra. Richmond!

Rating:
Summary: Excellent Approach to Spanish
Review: Anyone can memorize a zillion nouns. The key to learning a language is to know the power of verbs. This book does not disappoint. An excellent book for introducing Spanish as well as advancing beyond the basics. I recommend it highly.

Rating:
Summary: The single best workbook I have yet come across!
Review: This is a must-buy book, with an especially deceptive price. This is the mother of all bargains. With dozens to hundreds of sentences in every Spanish verb tense (including subjunctive mood and passive voice), not to mention special chapters on stem-changing and common irregular verbs, and chapters on reflexive constructions and using the infinitive. Then, after you thought you had learned it all, the author throws in full paragraphs to translate from English to Spanish, with vocabulary. I am going to buy a second copy just because it is such good practice. ALL ANSWERS ARE INCLUDED, TOO.

Rating:
Summary: Great workbook for learning verb tenses
Review: I have really enjoyed working out of this workbook and I have learned a lot. The explanations of the use of each verb tense are clear and precise, followed by illustrative examples and then relevant exercises. I liked how most of the exercises have you translating from English into Spanish, which is more challenging than from Spanish to English.

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Summary: What a great way to learn the verbs and their tenses!
Review: This is a wonderful workbook. It's simple and easy to understand, and truly does give you a chance to use the new things you're learning. The layout of the book is open and inviting, and the answers are all included in the back , so you can see how well you're doing. Plus you have the feeling of studying something relevant, as the author makes mention of familiar names , TVshows, and recent events . I would strongly encourage you to get this extremely helpful workbook, whether you are studying Spanish for the 1st time, or merely filling in the gaps, and reviewing, as I am.

Rating:
Summary: Brilliant
Review: This book is straight-foward and very informative. It's not difficult at all to understand. I would recommend it to anyone wanting to learn more about the Spanish verb-tenses, some grammar points, and irregular verbs.

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Summary: This book is so great!
Review: This book and the other Practice-Makes-Perfect workbook by Dorothy Richmond ("Spanish Pronouns and Prepositions") are the best Spanish books I've ever used. I just got back from 2 years in the Peace Corps in Honduras and I studied these books every day. They REALLY helped me learn more Spanish! In addition to the concise, easy-to-understand instruction sections, there's tons of exercises to do (with the correct answers in the back of the book) and as I did the exercises, I picked up all kinds of things that I'd been wondering how to say. I also liked the verb workbook a lot because it went way beyond the present tense, all the way to the subjunctive uses of "haber" and other more advanced things I really wanted to know. (This book is especially great if you already know some Spanish because you need some vocabulary to do the exercises, unless you don't mind looking up lots of words in the dictionary.) I highly recommend this book!

Rating:
Summary: Great book for the beginner or intermediate level learner
Review: This book has been extremely helpful to me. I am currently taking part in a self-paced, but intensive spanish correspondence course with bilingualamerica.com and this book has been an awesome resource for additional examples and grammar explanations. My comprehension skills have increased dramatically in three months (more than in the three years of high school spanish I took) in great part due to this workbook.

Rating:
Summary: Indispensable
Review: As others have said, this book simply must be part of your library if you're serious about learning Spanish. The price is incredible, the excercises are invaluable (and amusing-- no small issue when you're working hard!), and the explanations are lucid and thorough.

If I had to quibble, I'd point out that the book has a slight Latin American leaning (though I'm writing this from Spain and would still recommend it), and its exercises aren't quite cumulative enough for my taste: they tend to focus on the matter at hand, rather than review everything learned up till that point. But no matter-- you really can't go wrong with this. ¡Cómpralo!