Using Spanish : A Guide to Contemporary Usage

Rating:
Summary: for more advanced students
Review: Excellent book for serious students of Spanish and treats the language at some depth. Includes usages from both Spain and Latin America in various registers. Words and and phrases appropriate for informal and more formal usage. Quibble in that the book has come apart with fairly light and careful use.

Rating:
Summary: A first rate intermediate level Spanish text
Review: Having English as my first language I have appreciated the virtues of this book for a number of years. It is well organized with clear explanations and many examples. One of the features I value highly is the classification of words and expressions by their "register", meaning the social context in which the usage occurs. Anything from obscene to formal and legalistic. You will need a year or two of Spanish before the book can be useful.

Rating:
Summary: An innovative way of organizing "Grammar"
Review: This book was an amazing tool in my study of Spanish. It is not a traditional grammar, but it is still amazingly quick, succint, and too-the-point. It is technical book, in the sense that it doesn't waste time or space with those corny dialogues and phrases that seem to abound in beginner books. Instead, this book fills a critical gap: what you need to know about the structure and syntax of the language in order to go from low-intermediate speaker to advanced fluency. Most intermediate-advanced books resemble "readers", this book is the opposite. There is a wealth of information on false cognates, "registers" (ways of speaking according to the situation), and - my favorite - the right prepositions to use after nouns and verbs, a constant source of errors for non-native speakers who have trouble grasping how "pensar en" means "to think about". This book was just what I needed to move from intermediate foreign Spanish speaker to a fluent speaker. It is especially accessible and meaningful for language learners who - like me - actually find "grammar" to be one of the exciting and valuable parts of language learning.

Rating:
Summary: An innovative way of organizing "Grammar"
Review: This book was an amazing tool in my study of Spanish. It is not a traditional grammar, but it is still amazingly quick, succint, and too-the-point. It is technical book, in the sense that it doesn't waste time or space with those corny dialogues and phrases that seem to abound in beginner books. Instead, this book fills a critical gap: what you need to know about the structure and syntax of the language in order to go from low-intermediate speaker to advanced fluency. Most intermediate-advanced books resemble "readers", this book is the opposite. There is a wealth of information on false cognates, "registers" (ways of speaking according to the situation), and - my favorite - the right prepositions to use after nouns and verbs, a constant source of errors for non-native speakers who have trouble grasping how "pensar en" means "to think about". This book was just what I needed to move from intermediate foreign Spanish speaker to a fluent speaker. It is especially accessible and meaningful for language learners who - like me - actually find "grammar" to be one of the exciting and valuable parts of language learning.