Rating: 
Summary: Disappointing for an "Idiots" book
Review: "Idiots Spanish" is disappointing on the scale of "Idiots" books. I've purchased and read several of their series for research at work and all have proven very helpful, but this one falls short of being fun, interactive, or relevant information. The teaching methodology used in this book is useless. It's more of a reference-type book than a book you could use to learn the language. My recommendation: skip this "Idiots" book and go with a combination of Pimsleur's Spanish tapes/cds to learn the spoken and "Practical Spanish Grammar" to learn the written. Buenas suerte!
Rating: 
Summary: Appropriately titled
Review: I considered buying this book, but was apalled when I glanced at the section which claims that each syllable in a Spanish word has equal stress, unless there is an accent. Everyone who has ever studied Spanish for more than two days knows that this is incorrect. In fact, the rules are simple: if the word ends in a vowel or in an "n" or an "s", the accent is on the next to the last syllable. Otherwise, it's on the last syllable. If these rules are not followed, then an accent is required over the accented syllable. Or am I studying some other language...
Rating:
Summary: This book needs an editor!
Review: I don't know how this book made it to the printer's with so many mistakes. I'm currently in Chapter 20 and estimate that there's been at least 25 errors including the text and answer guide! Every time there's an error, I spend 10 minutes trying to understand where I'm off-track. The errors aren't typos, but just plain wrong. It's very frustrating.
Rating: 
Summary: Great!
Review: I found this book very helpful in that it teaches a variety of things from the basics to advanced level Spanish. Some reviewers said it only taught rudimentary phrases and such. I disagree totally. If you learn it you can get to a point where you can manipulate the language to be able to say anything. And yes it does give you a lot of words to take in, yet w/practice it is possible to reach a high level of understanding.
Rating: 
Summary: Lives up to the series
Review: I have a high standard for nonfiction books. They have to be easy to understand AND pack in a large amount of information. This series, "The Complete Idiot's Guide to...", is really the best out there. This book lives up to that title. It is a great resource once you've mastered the language, but it also takes it from the very beginning for people who've never even thought about learning a language before. The guide is written in an understandable way and is still informative and fun. If you are even remotely interesting in learning the Spanish language, this is a valuable resource that is definitely not a waste of money!
Rating:
Summary: Great! I wish learning all languages were this easy!
Review: I love this book! I think it is good for someone who is learning Spanish for the first time as well as people like myself who are trying to "relearn" a language. I like the way this book gives out cultural information. It is good to be educated about a culture as well as learning about a language. My friend from Spain is disgruntled by the lack of usage of the "vosotros/as" forms in other language series. If you are going to Spain, the speakers there use the "tu" and "vosotros" forms instead of the Latin American forms of "tu" and "ud". The side notes and pictures are fun. Gail Stein has done an excellent job of presenting the Spanish language. I hope the "Idiot's Guide" people expand their language series as well as putting their language series on cassette.
Rating:
Summary: maybe for a traveller...
Review: I'm not advanced enough in my spanish studies to verify the mistakes other reviewers mentioned, but I wouldn't doubt their existence. I bought this book thinking it would be a good introductory primer to the language - it is, only if you know some sentence structure already and are familiar with the language to some extent. It is also focused on the traveller, going in depth into phrases for hotels, airplanes and transportation. When I tried to look up the word "dog", it wasn't there. Not even "animal" or "pet" is listed in the index. I'm going to set this book aside for when I'm more familiar with the language and want a quick primer for travelling--and get something else to really teach me spanish.
Rating:
Summary: Learning Spanish? Don't bother with this book!
Review: Maybe Gail Stein is better at teaching French. But as far as Spanish goes I am really not impressed! I have just started to learn Spanish, and already I have found mistakes in the book. Take what she says in chapter 6(which deals with figuring out the gender of words), on page 41: "What if you want to talk about a lovely store you passed the other day? Which gender do you use with tienda(store)? You don't know the rules yet, so do you assume it's feminine because women like to shop more than men? Better not-you could get into big trouble with that kind of sexist presumption."
News flash to Mrs. Stein! Tienda is a feminine word! It's la(feminine) tienda, not el(masculine). I just started and I know that!
Also let me assure you, an idiot could not use this guide and learn Spanish! She assumes that you already have a good grasp of the language. If I didn't have some better Spanish books this one would be way over my head!
A third thing wrong with this book, is that the answer key in the back is incorrect! You don't even know if you have the right answer! The only thing good I can say about the book is that there are a lot of tables. So you can copy them to check out a word really fast. BUT...
That does not save the book. It is still lousy. They need to try a third edition! Maybe with a better author. If you want to learn Spanish try Madrigal's Magic Guide to Spanish. You can get it on amazon.com or pretty much any book store. I have friends who speak Spanish (some of them are Spanish), who say it is one of the best. But don't bother with this book. Trust me!
Rating:
Summary: Not What I Wanted
Review: My goal was to teach myself Spanish (after 20 years since my high school exposure). I was disappointed that this book didn't focus on the structure of the language. I was seeking more information on grammar and on the variety of verb tenses. This book is oriented to the "visual" learner who is capable of memorizing phrases. I want to learn to construct the language, to think in Spanish, not just to pull idioms from a memorized repertoire.
Rating:
Summary: The Complete Idiot's Guide to Learning Spanish on Your Own
Review: The Complete Idiot's Guide to Learning Spanish on Your Own is a great book. It maintains the same quality instruction and coverage as other books in the Idiot's series. Unlike many of the learning Spanish books sold today, The Complete Idiot's Guide to Learning Spanish on Your Own keeps up with the business jargon of today.
Other books merely cover making phone calls, ordering at a restaurant, making hotel reservations, and asking for directions. Gail Stein covers this and more. She has a whole chapter devoted to Spanish words related to computers, surfing the Net, making faxes, and photocopying. As a business person faced with constantly changing technology, I need a book that covers these topics in Spanish.
Buy this book and Marcial Prado's Practical Spanish Grammar, and the Learning Spanish Like Crazy lessons and tele-classes, and you'll learn Spanish very fast.
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