Spanish Among Amigos : Conversational Spanish Beyond the Classroom

Rating:
Summary: Me chifla este libro! This book makes advanced spanish fun!
Review: I'm a highschool student in advanced Spanish class. We all think we're bilingual and pretty hot stuff. Then our teacher brought in this book and we're like, "yawn, who needs a text book, we know Spanish". But then....
This book is AWESOME!!! and hysterically funny and I don't want to admit how challenging the new vocab and grammar was but we had SO MUCH FUN learning with it. Pepa & Pili are these two really cool and bitchy friends who rag on eachother and everyoine else all the time, and say absolutely everything that's on their minds and it makes it really fun to read. We also really learned a lot about Spanish culture and habits in the introduction sections - Spain sounds like SO much fun!!!
All of us raced through this book and we're all saying we want to do a year abroad in Spain now. The only thing is - I want to see the movie of this book!

Rating:
Summary: Me chifla este libro! This book makes advanced spanish fun!
Review: I'm a highschool student in advanced Spanish class. We all think we're bilingual and pretty hot stuff. Then our teacher brought in this book and we're like, "yawn, who needs a text book, we know Spanish". But then....
This book is AWESOME!!! and hysterically funny and I don't want to admit how challenging the new vocab and grammar was but we had SO MUCH FUN learning with it. Pepa & Pili are these two really cool and bitchy friends who rag on eachother and everyoine else all the time, and say absolutely everything that's on their minds and it makes it really fun to read. We also really learned a lot about Spanish culture and habits in the introduction sections - Spain sounds like SO much fun!!!
All of us raced through this book and we're all saying we want to do a year abroad in Spain now. The only thing is - I want to see the movie of this book!

Rating:
Summary: It'd be better if it had an audio component
Review: Part of learning to use slang is understanding the tones, phrasing, and intonation. This book is wonderfully comprehensive in vocabulary, but Should have audio with the dialogs. Also, there just aren't enough exercises in the book to make it effective alone as a learning tool. If you have Spanish-speaking friends, then you'd be fine, but if you are studying independently you'll have to make up more exercises to do alone. I'd order Streetwise Spanish (Paperback edition with tapes) to learn "Spanish beyond the classroom" if you want to have audio. Otherwise this book may be okay for you.

Rating:
Summary: A cultural gem as well as a language book
Review: The really standout feature of this book for me is how easy and fun it is to read. I consider myself fairly capable and passably fluent in conversational Spanish, but not only did I learn completely new and unexpected phrases and colloquial vocabulary in Spanish that had previously been beyond me, but Pepa and Pili (the main characters in the dialogues) had me chuckling and at times guffawing throughout. The author has a great sense of humor and a flair for refreshingly real-sounding conversation - not the stilted repartee you usually see in language books.
After reading this book you will no longer need to sneak peaks at the subtitles during Almodovar movies. This book is great fun to read and the exercises are quite challenging - a real help in moving your Spanish past the text book into the real world.

Rating:
Summary: This book makes it really fun to improve your Spanish
Review: Whoever said learning couldn't be fun? This book proves it.Pepa & Pili are the two protagonists through whose casual conversations Ms Agullo teaches us uproarious new slang and grammar, and they are a blast to eavesdrop on. Quite often I was actually laughing out loud. For anyone who is already moderately fluent in Spanish and wants to loosen up with it, this book is a must have. It's an invaluable source of informal everyday Spanish - the stuff that stumps you when you're trying to keep up with conversation in the real world, and that can lead to embarassing blunders if you don't catch on - so well worthwhile right there. As if that weren't enough, each new chapter includes insightful cultural commentary that is written with wry appreciation and witty asides. This book is a little gem, and a MUST for anyone interested in really getting into Spanish language and culture. Just one thing: it wouldn't hurt to have a tape as an optional supplement.

Rating:
Summary: This book makes it really fun to improve your Spanish
Review: Whoever said learning couldn't be fun? This book proves it.Pepa & Pili are the two protagonists through whose casual conversations Ms Agullo teaches us uproarious new slang and grammar, and they are a blast to eavesdrop on. Quite often I was actually laughing out loud. For anyone who is already moderately fluent in Spanish and wants to loosen up with it, this book is a must have. It's an invaluable source of informal everyday Spanish - the stuff that stumps you when you're trying to keep up with conversation in the real world, and that can lead to embarassing blunders if you don't catch on - so well worthwhile right there. As if that weren't enough, each new chapter includes insightful cultural commentary that is written with wry appreciation and witty asides. This book is a little gem, and a MUST for anyone interested in really getting into Spanish language and culture. Just one thing: it wouldn't hurt to have a tape as an optional supplement.