Rating: 
Summary: Not so much a language book as a guide into another culture
Review: You may as well be trying to learn Latin with most Spanish books. Not only are they dry and boring, they are absolutely lifeless! Keenan presents Spanish as a living language, full of real life examples and situations (and I don't mean asking the maid in your hotel room for more towels!) I have read this book until the pages have fallen out. Take it from someone who followed Keenan's advice, went to Mexico, and started talking to the locals - you will never find a more helpful resource for your sojourn. The section on invectives and obcenities is worth the price of admission. You may never have an inclination to use any of these words, but I guarantee you it is very, very useful knowing when they are being used toward you. Finally, never have I encountered a Spanish language book which enlightens one as to why everything in Spanish is reversed, e.g. blanca y negra for black and white. Keenan's wonderful book helps you get inside the Spanish speaker's mind and world to the extent that you might just realize it is the English speaker that has everything backwards.
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Summary: How to clean up your pathetic high-school/college Spanish.
Review: This guy is the greatest. If you read this book, and pay attention, you will go from sounding like a gringo to a person who has actually listened to the Spanish language, not just read grammer books. This book best serves folks who've had a least two years of grammer but it's also helpful for those just beginning to avoid some really terrible mistakes that beginners typically make.
Rating:
Summary: Very Good Book!
Review: I have made incredible use of this book. As someone picking up the language after a long lapse, I have found Breaking Out an invaluable resource.How many language books would dare use "The Twilight Zone" as the chapter title for the infamous Subjunctive Mode?
Rating:
Summary: A Quick Post-First or -Second Year Brush Up
Review: This book really helps people who have taken a beginner Spanish Class, and want to not sound like they just did. There are many chapters (even one dealing with the not-so-polite words of the language!) dealing with pronunciation, subjunctive, and other problems for Spanish-as-a-Second-Language Students. I use this in a class I teach, and highly recommend it.
Rating:
Summary: An excellent, unique book for the serious Spanish student.
Review: Breaking Out of Beginner's Spanish is a terrific book. I recommend it to all my second-year Spanish students, and to all students who travel with me on study abroad programs. It contains a wealth of down-to-earth grammar, vocabulary, and cultural material, presented in a friendly and nonpedantic way. (My favorite chapter: "10 Ways to Avoid Being Taken for a Gringo". My students' favorite chapter: "Invective and Obscenity") It contains some of the clearest explanations I've ever encountered to help students deal with tricky distinctions like ser/estar, preterite/imperfect, and indicative/subjunctive. In addtition, there is a whole section on false cognates, designed to keep the unwary traveler from declaring himself to be pregnant, or asking to be served food without condoms in it. Don't leave home without it.
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Summary: Buy this book as soon as you finish Spanish 101!
Review: (By Edward Trimnell, author of "Why You Need a Foreign Language & How to Learn One" (ISBN:1591133343)) Students of the Spanish language can always use more books that can help them progress beyond the basics. This one does the job in a fashion which is both engaging and informative. The author, who learned Spanish as a native English-speaker, is acutely aware of the subtle points of the language that English speakers are most likely to bungle. I particularly liked the opening section on pronunciation. Since Spanish is not as difficult to pronounce as languages like Thai or Arabic, many students develop bad habits in this area. Keenan's tips will help set the phonetically wayward down the path of proper pronunciation. There is also a lot of useful information about verbs--which are sometimes tricky for "gringos." (I wish this book had existed 20 years ago when I began studying Spanish.) You should own this book as soon as you have a solid grounding in the fundamentals of Spanish.
Rating: 
Summary: Eat This Book Like Candy!
Review: This book is an invaluable resource for the person who knows the basics of Spanish but wants to be able to converse more colloquially and fluidly. I bought it to use as a reference, but I sat down and basically read it cover-to-cover like a novel--it's that well-written and fascinating. It contains great advice on common pitfalls English speakers make, uses of words that the dictionaries don't tell you about, and particularly helpful, translations of those verbal tags you put on sentences in normal conversation--"y'know," "well," "and so on," etc. I found this to be extremely valuable because, as the author says, you can throw these phrases in while your brain is grinding into 1st gear and throwing together the sentence ahead.
However, I can't give it the full 5 stars because:
*I wish the author would have treated the "trilled rr" issue a little more fully. Other than TV and radio announcers, I have never heard an actual Hispanic person use the trilled rr. To me, accustomed to the speech of Puerto Ricans, Colombians, and Dominicans, it sounds stilted and affected. I can do the trilled rr, but I never bother--I just speak with a South American accent, which means the "r" at the beginning of a word and the "rr" anywhere are pronounced like an h, while the "r" at the end of a word is just swallowed. So "regar" comes out "he-GAH" and "cerrado" "se-HAH-do." In my opinion, unless you're going to Castille, you're better off not slinging your spit around trying to do a trilled rr.
*The book doesn't have an index, which it really should. Yes, you should read the whole thing; but an index would really be handy when you are practicing your Spanish and you can't remember how to say "no wonder" or what verbs you should use instead of "coger." This is the major reason I have to dock them a star. I would definitely go up to 5 stars--6 if I could--if the next edition would have an index.
But buy the book, because it's terrific and it will take you up a level in your spoken Spanish!
Rating:
Summary: Too Bad its Out of Print!
Review: I am attempting an immersion method to learn Spanish and trying to read both this book and 1001 Pitfalls in Spanish. And I am also doing the Learning Like Crazy Spansih course which seems to be going really well. www.learningspanishlikecrazy.com. Both Spanish books are great for an intermediate or an advanced level Student. But not for the beginner. If you are just a novice, then you should try Spanish - Verbs & Essentials of Grammar by Ina W. Ramboz.
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Summary: The book you need to really understand and speak Spanish
Review: This is a great book. Among the chapter highlights are:
- Ten Ways to Avoid Being Taken for a Gringo: Excellent things to think about if you want to fit in and not insult people by your actions.
- Minding Your Verbal Manners: Things Spanish-speakers would take for granted that any considerate, well-groomed person would know.
- The Secret Life of Verbs: Almost everything you need to know about verbs in general. (I like the summary of the future tense: for the most part, forget about it. But he does give a good summary on the use of the "Future of Uncertainty" construction.)
- The Twilight Zone: All about that nasty subjunctive mood. Those who have studied Latin or Greek will not find the subjunctive terribly scary, but for everybody else...
- Sixty-four Verbs: Better descriptions on their range of meaning and usages that the one-liners usually provided in dictionaries don't cover.
- Cranking Up Your Spanish: All those sentence starters ("En fin," "Es que," "A ver," etc.) that don't show up in grammars and can drive you crazy since they set the scene for the rest of the sentence.
- Snappy Answers: Quick responses to things that may catch you off-guard.
- Invective and Obscenity: Survey of forceful, rude, and obscene speech (with the obligatory warnings about things that may get you in a fight)
- Which is Which: Words that English speakers often confuse.
- Influences of Spanish on English and vice-versa
From my point of view, among the good points of the book are:
1. It helps with many problems the beginner is likely to have. Most language books are written by native speakers of the language. In this book, Keenan takes a different approach: he is going to explain all of the problems he had himself while learning the language and using it for many years among native Spanish-speakers. Since I expect I will have most of the same problems, having them laid out is very helpful.
2. It is extremely engaging. I have spent many nights up late reading it. Yes, you read that right. Don't think in terms of your typical grammar book: think in terms of an long article where a fellow Spanish learner says "Ok, here's everything I learned about the language."
3. It has filled in my experience with my other Spanish courses. Often, idiomatic words or phrases will come up in them that don't make a lot of sense. Keenan explains virtually all of them, including which sound stilted or odd to Spanish-speakers.
4. It has excellent sections on the difference between ser and estar and between the imperfect and the preterite. These are two of the bugaboos that traditionally plague us Spanish students. The ser/estar treatment in particular is better than any book I've used: he goes far beyond the typical "estar is for things that change" explanation - which is true but incomplete. I finally understand, for example, why you say "está muerto" instead of "es muerto."
5. It has good sections on how not to give offense to people from different cultures. In every culture, people do some things completely innocently that are interpreted in other cultures as aggressive or insulting. Although there is no single "Hispanic" culture, Keenan helps by pointing out some things that are commonly considered negative that I might not expect. I should note that Keenan's experience is primarily in Mexico, so most of the cultural and localized language usage tips are centered on Mexico.
I really, really, wanted to give this book 5 stars, but I can't. So what's not to like? Just two things, really:
1. It has no index. This makes it difficult to find words or phrases. I would expect this kind of book to have a fairly extensive index, but none is provided. As I use this book more and more, I find this to be a bigger and bigger problem. Often, I'll find I need to use some verb or construction and want to look it up. Unfortunately, it's very difficult to do because it could be in one of several chapters. Let's say I'm trying to remember something about a given verb: do I look in "Tricksters," "The Secret Life of Verbs," "The Twilight Zone," "Sixty-Four Verbs," or "Spanish Roots?" Or, let's say you are trying to remember a word or expression that you seem to recall is sometimes misused, and you want to use it right. Do you look in "Tricksters," "Invective and Obscenity," "Which is Which?", "Say it Right," or "The Big Mix?" I have spent more time than I like leafing through the various chapters looking for a word that could have been indexed.
2. Keenan uses obscenities more freely than I'd like (even outside the chapter specifically on obscenities). Now, I'm not a "schoolmarm" (Keenan's words); but I don't want to be reading (and don't necessarily want children to be reading either) this kind of language. It would have been fairly easy to substitute non-obscene language in most of these places, but he doesn't.
For these reasons, I could not give this book five stars. But, overall it is an excellent book, and one that will greatly enrich both your understanding and your fluency.
By the way, I've read other reviews and lists saying that this book is more for advanced students of Spanish. ¡No es verdad! While I'd agree that it's probably not for rank beginners, I believe one of the keys to really learning a language is to get out there and starting speaking to people as soon as you can. And this book gives you the tools to get out there, speak confidently and semi-fluently, and not give offence when you don't mean to.
Rating:
Summary: El mejor!
Review: I would give this book 7 stars if possible!
If you are ready to start speaking colloquial Spanish, the way it is really used, rather than the way the text books teach.. then this book is for you.
This book is written by an anglophone, fluent in Spanish (obviously) and directed toward the anglophone student of Spanish who understands the basics, can converse in Spanish basics, but wants to take their abilities to the 'next level.' This book is a must-read (multiple times) that is sure to produce many an 'ah ha!' as the lightbulbs go on. Appropriately titled, this book will help you break out and advance to the next level.
Readers will learn how to avoid the common mistakes generally made by native anglophones speaking Spanish. Also very helpful is a section that explains when to use certain verbs in situations instead of another. There is even a short section on obsenities for those interested.
Your conversational Spanish partners will definitely notice an improvment when you start applying some of the lessons from this book and using all your newly learned colloquialisms.
Quit speaking like a text-book-trained-Gringo and start sounding like a native today!
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