The Berlitz Self-Teacher: Spanish (Berlitz Self-Teachers)

Rating:
Summary: A great book to get a good start on Spanish
Review: I found this book an excellent way to get started in Spanish. Each lesson takes you through a conversation, illustrating a grammatical point (and teaching you vocubulary along the way). The grammar is illustrated through the conversation first, then certain grammatical rules are pointed out. This way, one can learn Spanish the way one usually learns their own native language; specifically, by hearing the sentence structure over and over again and "absorbing" the rules.

However, be warned that the pronunciations provided in the book are characteristic of Spanish as spoken in Spain, and not Latin American pronunciations. I think this book works best if practiced along with a audio tape.

The only other complaint is that the present tense is studied for the first two-thirds of the book. Then in the last third of the book, they cover three additional tenses very quickly. But, I still think it is a good book to get started in Spanish.

Rating:
Summary: Pues.........
Review: This book is a good introduction to Castillian Spanish as spoken in Spain. Gramatically it is disappointing as it only covers in any depth the present, preterite (past),and future tenses. There are in total fifteen verb tenses, including another past tense,the imperfect. The other tenses including the emotion rich subjunctive are barely covered! !Qué lastima!(What a shame!)