Practice Makes Perfect: Spanish Verb Tenses

Rating:
Summary: I love this book!
Review: Even though this book is a little outdated, I just recently bought it and can't put it down. I took spanish in High School but since i started college I forgot a lot and havn't continued with it. So i decided i needed to get back into it and continue learning it. This book is great. It gives you quick reviews of the lesson and then gives you a lot of exercises such as fill ins (where you get to translate sentences from english to spanish.) The best part though is that you can check your answers - which are all at the end of the book. Also it has a little glossery in the back. Very helpful!!

Rating:
Summary: Great book for mastering Spanish verb conjugation
Review: If you want to learn Spanish verbs tenses and how to really conjugate them, there isn't a better book that I could recommend to you. You will still need a good learning Spanish plan or audio course to go with the book in order to improve your listening and speaking Spanish skills. For that I recommend either the Learning Spanish Like Crazy CD course or the Digital downloadable one at www.learningspanishlikecrazy.com Once you have mastered the green Book (Practice Makes Perfect: Spanish Verb Tenses), you can then move on to Dorothy Richmond's red book (Practice Makes Perfect: Spanish Pronouns and Prepositions).

Rating:
Summary: Practice Makes Perfect
Review: So far, so good. Patrick Jackson at

www.LearningSpanishLIkeCrazy.com recommended it to me and said that

it is one of the best books on the topic of Spanish verbs. Maybe

because the book focuses on that one topic and nothing else. What I

like most about this book is that it is full of exercises. Nearly

every page on the book has a written exercise. The answers can be

found at the end of the book. The only thing I didn't like about it

is that it also teaches the vosotros form of you.


Rating:
Summary: practice and practical application makes perfect
Review: I am an advanced Spanish student and have found this book along with Spanish Pronouns and Prepositions to be very helpful in reviewing tenses, uses and conjugations. The exercises and answer key have helped me practice and correct myself. My one frustration with this book is that after they teach you a concept they test you on the concept, which is of course helpful for learning that concept, but you know what they are looking for since you just learned the concept. I would prefer exercises at the end of the sections that incorporate all that you have learned (e.g., having to use all types of subjunctive instead of only being tested on imperfect subjunctive). The way it is now you are practicing regurgitation instead of how to practically use each tense.
This said, I still recommend this book as it has helped clarify a lot of issues and helped me practice specific tenses ad nauseum.

Rating:
Summary: BEST way to practice Spanish conjugations & build vocabulary
Review: I searched all over for a good workbook to improve my beginning Spanish skills, and most books are very scattered and don't have intensive and cleary defined excercises. This book is a work horse and gets the job done. Not only does it provide lots of practice with conjugating verbs,(which I found the biggest challenge in learning the language), but it also, builds vocabulary and grammar. MY favorite part was translating the english paragraphs into spanish, such good practice. I, only, wish that they had it in other languages. This book is an invaluable tool for those who already have the basics spanish skills but need practice with verbs and vocabulary. See also, Practice Makes Perfect, pronouns and prepositions.

Rating:
Summary: Excellent and very uplifting because it gets to the point
Review: I bought this book over 6 years ago. I really thought it helped. Unfortunately, I never practiced my Spanish enough.
But this book helps you get the tenses correct. Even Mexican Americans use incorrect verb tenses when they speak Spanish.
Being American I really think this is really the only book that really gets to the point. I have never and will never find a better book about Spanish verb tenses than this one.

Rating:
Summary: Critique of Spanish Verb Tenses
Review: Verbs are the heart of any language. If you want to become knowledgable and facil at not only conjugting verbs but understanding the contextual usage and rules governing the uses of the verbs, then this is the book for you. I think that anyone interested in studying Spanish, especially if they want to study it on their own, should have this workbook as part of their repertoire. I have found it invaluable. I recommend it highly. (I have also purchased and studied Richmond's Pronouns and Preposition workbook and the reviews are similar.)

I have given the book a 4 star rating rather than five for the following reasons:

1. Lack of an index: (The same is true of the Pronouns and Preposition workbook.) I find it hard to comprehend how a contemporary academic book can be published without an index. There is a tremendous amount of valuable information contained in this book but being limited to the Table of Contents or to ones memory of where a specific item can be found is debilitating. This is a terrible ommission.

2. After studying the book thoroughly twice, my workbook is riddled with tabs and annotations in search of clarifications. A bit of addtional clarification and some additional examples before the author goes off into the exercises would potentially eliminate a considerable amount of confusion. The sections on Ser and Estar are a good example. It appears that sufficient explanaions are provided in the book (in the section on Ser for exaple) until one delves into further exercises in subsequent chapters of the book. There, knowledge of the full use of "Ser" is assumed, but referencing back to the original chapeter on "Ser" leaves one empty handed (in some but not all cases) as to why "Ser" was used rather than "Estar." This might seem picayune until one looks back on the total number of questions raised throughout the book. It is understandable that the author cannot anticipate all possible questions and points of confusion, but a bit more explanation and the use of additional examples would greatly amplify and clarify the grammatical content.

3. The student would also benefit greatly by having additional exercises in the book that mix and match what is learned in previous chapters (This is done is a few limited cases.) It is all too easy as an exercise to answer questions and translate text that directly follows the material being presented, for it is customed tailored to the points being made in that exercise. Addtional end of chapter exercise combining all that has been learned would be a valued addition. With that said, let me also add that the translation paragraphs at the end of each section (as humorous and as enjoyable as they are to translate) somewhat satisfy this contention, but not fully.