The Everything Learning Spanish Book: Speak, Write, and Understand Basic Spanish in No Time (Everything Series)

Rating:
Summary: Wrong, wrong, wrong.
Review: Admittedly, I haven't read this entire book yet. I bought it because I'm giving private Spanish lessons to some children and wanted new ways to teach and to practice Spanish. However, I've skimmed the book and there are some glaring errors in it. These may seem like nitpicks to you, but as someone who's spent the last 5 years of her life learning to speak this language properly, the mistakes actually sort of make me grumpy. On page 28 the author says that he's "forsak[ing] the modern simplifications [of the pronunciations of b and v] for that of the older, more correct standard." He goes on to explain that the letter b is a labial consonant and the letter b is a dentolabial consonant. However, the Real Academia Española says that the pronunciation of v as a dentolabial has NEVER existed in Spanish (except as a spontaneous form spoken by natives of Valencia and Mallorca). The second mistake--and perhaps the more grave one--is the section on direct and indirect objects. He confuses the direct and indirect object by relying on the non-standard English translation of sentences. He explains that Spaniards will use "le/les" instead of "lo/los," and in this he is correct; nevertheless, his formation and explanation of some sentences with direct objects is simply incorrect. (And in one example, he even conjugates a verb improperly!) Because understanding direct and indirect objects is a critical determiner of Spanish language fluency (along with a firm grasp of the subjunctive), these sorts of errors cannot be overlooked by someone who is undertaking a serious study of the language. Find another book to use.

Rating:
Summary: Wrong, wrong, wrong.
Review: Admittedly, I haven't read this entire book yet. I bought it because I'm giving private Spanish lessons to some children and wanted new ways to teach and to practice Spanish. However, I've skimmed the book and there are some glaring errors in it. These may seem like nitpicks to you, but as someone who's spent the last 5 years of her life learning to speak this language properly, the mistakes actually sort of make me grumpy. On page 28 the author says that he's "forsak[ing] the modern simplifications [of the pronunciations of b and v] for that of the older, more correct standard." He goes on to explain that the letter b is a labial consonant and the letter b is a dentolabial consonant. However, the Real Academia Española says that the pronunciation of v as a dentolabial has NEVER existed in Spanish (except as a spontaneous form spoken by natives of Valencia and Mallorca). The second mistake--and perhaps the more grave one--is the section on direct and indirect objects. He confuses the direct and indirect object by relying on the non-standard English translation of sentences. He explains that Spaniards will use "le/les" instead of "lo/los," and in this he is correct; nevertheless, his formation and explanation of some sentences with direct objects is simply incorrect. (And in one example, he even conjugates a verb improperly!) Because understanding direct and indirect objects is a critical determiner of Spanish language fluency (along with a firm grasp of the subjunctive), these sorts of errors cannot be overlooked by someone who is undertaking a serious study of the language. Find another book to use.

Rating:
Summary: Great Book
Review: I have tried learning spanish for years (YEARS!) and could not for the life of me get past very, very basic speaking. I have tried a class, books and cd's and nothing really worked until I picked up this book. It takes you from the very basics to almost fluency, and it is done in a manner that is very easy to follow and understand.

For the reviewer that found a couple of errors in the authors opinion of certain things, that does not decrease the validity of the book and its usefulness. I think it is funny that someone that teaches the language turned to this book for help, but for someone like me with no abilities, I am impressing a lot of people with my ability to speak Spanish.

Rating:
Summary: Bravo!
Review: This is an excellent overview to learning Spanish and is one of the best books on the market. The author is passionate about his subject and understands how to make learning a new language fun.

The Everything series is well done and presents the information in a very accessible format.