Easy Spanish Step By Step

If you're looking for a simple but fairly thorough way to learn Spanish, this book teaches it in 15 straightforward grammatical steps. You'll learn Spanish the way people naturally acquire a language, with each step building upon the one before. First you learn the elements of a sentence with steps including: Nouns, Articles, and Adjectives; Estar, Ser, and Subject Pronouns; Hay, Interrogative Words, Days, and Months; Numbers, Dates, and Time; Regular Verbs; Irregular Verbs; Ir and the Future; Adjectives and Adverbs; and Negatives and Prepositions. Then you move on to more complicated steps like Indirect Objects, Direct Objects, Reflexive Verbs, Present Subjunctive, Preterit Tense, and finally Imperfect Tense. Each chapter contains clear grammar explanations and students will need to make sure they understand every concept before moving to the next or they may struggle to keep up. The book explains each component of Spanish grammar in an uncomplicated way, with plenty of examples to help students understand. After the explanations, varied written and oral exercises are included so students get used to reading, writing, and speaking in Spanish. While speaking with a native Spanish speaker is the best way to learn how to pronounce the words correctly, a pronunciation guide is included in the book that's very helpful in describing how words should be pronounced. Each chapter also includes Spanish readings with comprehension questions to help students learn new vocabulary and practice reading aloud. Some may find that there's not enough review or drills in this book to help them cement the language into their head, because it does move rather quickly from step to step. However, if students are willing stay with each step until they truly understand the section and have memorized the vocabulary words, this program will give them a working knowledge of the language and allow them to communicate in everyday Spanish. You'll need a Spanish/English dictionary to get the most out of this book because while some of the Spanish words are shown with their English translation (including over 300 of the most commonly used verbs), many are not and the actual number of vocabulary words (specifically nouns) is limited. Overall, this is a great book that can quickly give students the knowledge they need to comminute in Spanish with confidence. An answer key for all the exercises is included in the back. By Barbara Bregstein, 304 pgs, pb. ~ Rachel