Spanish for Law Enforcement Personnel

Rating:
Summary: Not recommended...
Review: I am a bilingual speaker, with my degree in Spanish language & hispanic culture (Dartmouth College 1984), and teach both. First, this book DOES have a lot of words and phrases that could be useful, but you need to be close to native level ability to "sift out" those. In fact, the book presents itself as a "non-stressful" way to learn Spanish, and the introduction "talks down" the need to do repetition, drill, or memorization. Almost comically, within the first 100 pages, the reader is presented with over 1500 words, and hundreds of phrases (some of which are wrong). The real downside, from a teaching/learning standpoint, is that there is very little structure or foundation presented to help you remember any of this - looks like "memorization hell" to me. It would be more frustrating than funny for a novice. [Note that the book makes an attempt to provide more structure much later in the book, but I found the presentation to be substandard - its organization really needs to be reworked.] The fact that the book is so poorly organized for teaching (either self-teaching or as a teacher) makes it largely unusable in many contexts. As a person with a native level ability, I found some of the words and phrases useful (i.e. using the book as a reference), but as a previous reviewer points out, even these may not be reliable, given the numerous mistakes which make me smile as I went through the info. I would recommend rather that beginners (law personnel) buy or find a basics-of-spanish book/course, followed by purchasing a simple and focused phrasebook specifically for law enforcement personnel. The author's credentials seem impressive, and I'd love to see him and some native speakers do a serious rework of this material, since it does have the seeds of a useful text.

Rating:
Summary: Good for some beginners, but...
Review: I work in law enforcement and have a BA in Spanish. Some people will find this to be a very useful book, but I found it to be too much of what I already know (general-purpose vocabulary and phrases) and not enough of what I don't (more advanced unique terms and expressions an officer would use at work).

Be advised that this book is NOT designed to teach Spanish grammar to the complete newcomer. It does not even discuss grammar, so if you have never studied Spanish, you'll need to look elsewhere first to learn to conjugate verbs, etc. This book has many examples of useful phrases, but it also contains many long vocabulary lists which--for the beginner--offer little to no guidance on how to use them in a gramatically-correct sentence.

I found this book to be a bit too broad in it's approach to teaching Spanish for a specific field of interest ("law enforcement"). I would have preferred it if the author would have assumed that the reader already had a functional vocabulary and was just looking for the unique terms and expressions used in police work. As it is, you have to sift through a lot of general-purpose vocabulary and phrases to get to the meat--the unique terms and expressions you need as a cop but wouldn't have learned in Spanish 101, or even Spanish 301. If you're a beginning student of Spanish and already know the basics of grammar, you may appreciate the lists of basic words and phrases.

Where the book does cover a topic of importance to me, I found it did not go into enough detail. For example, there is a section on DUI's, but the phrases it offers are only of a very general nature and do not convey all of the instructions an officer would need to process a DUI. With all due respect to the author, it is apparent from what is missing from this book that he does not work in law enforcement and lacks an indepth understanding of the type of information that a police officer would want to convey and obtain. Phrases like, "You're in violation of a no-contact order," or, "If you don't go to court, the judge will issue a warrant for your arrest," should be included in a 410 page book for law enforcement but I can't find any indication here how to convey those ideas.

Much of my work with Spanish-speaking individuals involves gangs, but this book never directly addresses gangs and the associated terms that go with them ("brincar" means "to jump in," for example). Also, there is no mention of Spanish slang or swear words in this book. Slang is a subject in itself, but every Spanish book for law enforcement should contain at least a list of slang terms that relate to officer-safety ("cuete" means "gun," for example).

This book could also benefit from a good index since the table of contents is extremely basic. Finding info on a particular topic takes some searching.

In fairness to the author, I must address a previous reviewer's implication that the book uses nonstandard Spanish. On page 210 under "The Raid" it correctly lists "This is the police" as "Somos la policia," and on page 8 under "What's your name?" it says that the proper way to answer someone asking your name is to say, "Soy..." for "I'm..." However, the book's cover does indeed contain the error the reviewer mentioned.

Despite the above citicisms, this book is certainly not without its merits. Every single Spanish word has an accompanying phonetic spelling as a pronunciation guide, which beginners may find very helpful. And although the treatment of some subjects is more superficial than I would have liked, a broad range of subjects are discussed. If you knew everything in this book, you would at least be able to get by in most law-enforcement situations. But if you're looking for something with a more complete listing of advanced terms and phrases (more "meat"), a much better alternative is Living Language's Essential Spanish for Law Enforcement.

Rating:
Summary: DON'T BUY THIS BOOK
Review: I'm spanish, and I tell you I hope I could give 0 stars. I don't know how this guy was allowed to write this book without knowing spanish. Just look at the cover, you can read "Esta es la policia" meaning "this is the police", well, a spanish speaking person would NEVER say that. Correct form: "Somos la policia" or even if questioned who it is "¿Quien es?" you should just say "La policia". Same thing applies when making a phone call, we NEVER say "Esto es Pedro, quisiera hablar con Maria", instead we say "Soy pedro, quisiera hablar con María" --> Translated (This is Pedro, may I talk to Maria). Inside the book, things are even worse. If you use this book you will sound quite stupid to a spanish speaking audience, avoid it.