Spanish Without The Fuss - From Living Language
Are you interested in a light-hearted, easy-does-it, approach to learning Spanish? One that teaches you the essentials you need to know, while still having fun at the same time? This book with audio CD focuses on keepint things simple, having a good time and teaching you the basics of the Spanish language.
The 60 minute audio CD is recorded by native Spanish speakers so you learn the exact way to pronounce the phrases.
You get 20 lessons in all, each one based on a dialogue included printed in the book and recorded native spoken audio on the CD. You'' get used to the similar format of all the lessons. First, you get a preview of what's ahead in the lesson. The types of phrases you'll be learning to say, the topic of the dialogues, etc. Then comes the actual dialog upon which the lesson is bases. You can follow along in the book as you listen to the CD if you want to. Then you get a few questions, in Spanish, to see how well you understood the conversation. Then you get a lesson/workshop where they teach you some important concept of the Spanish language. Next you get several activities to kind of practice what you've learned so you can remember it better.
The lessons end up with something called crib notes, which gives you the dialogs in English if you need it. And the answers to all the activities are there at the end of the lesson too.
So that's the general format of all the lessons in the book. The topics of the lessons cover themes like greeting people, talking about your family, having a conversation on the telephone, going shopping, getting around town and talking about different forms of transportation. Also, talking about the Internet and email, restaurants and dining out, the arts and free time activities, and many more.
A Look At What's In The Appendix
This book has a fairly large appendix section so let's take a look at what you find there...
- A shortcut to Spanish grammar gives you an overview of the grammar you need to know to get by without overwhelming with too much information.
- Appendix B is an irregular verb table and a list of a few exceptions in the Spanish language. For example, the way the plural of luz (light) is luces.
- The third part of the appendix is kind of a mini Spanish phrasebook. It gives you some phrases to use for certain situations like at the restaurant, or at a hotel, etc.
- Tips on sounding like a native speaker when you talk.
- A list of Web sites to help you learn Spanish.
- A glossary of grammar terms.
- And the book finished with a Spanish/English and English/Spanish glossary, and then the index.