Practice Makes Perfect: Spanish Pronouns And Prepositions

It is hands-down the best one on the market for Spanish Pronouns and Prepositions. And WHAT A VALUE!!!

What's best? The authors leave enough space to write in the book. And at this price, you will want to write all over it. I have had less luck with workbooks that ask for a paragraph, but make you enter it in your own notebook.

Also there is a good glossary at the end of the book so you can easily look up unknown words without having to lug your dictionary around.

I can't say enough good. Buy it.


A great reference book with useful exercises   March 14, 2002
 25 out of 25 found this review helpful

This workbook masters two important grammatical concepts that present difficulty for Spanish students. Thanks to the clarity and thoroughness of the text-workbook, students and those looking to perfectionize specific weaknesses in their understanding of pronouns and prepositions will immediately recognize that this book is an excellent resource. It is well organized, first tackling pronouns of all categories then prepositions with a strong emphasis on "por" and "para". Each chapter offers a clear explanation of the topic at hand, followed by a wide variety of examples of its usage, ample practice exercises and a practical translation at the end of every chapter. Once having completed the exercises, there is an answer key at the back of the book which is extremely beneficial in that the student can readily identify his/her strengths and weaknesses. As a Spanish teacher, I found this text and the exercises to be a useful supplemenatary study aid that enables Spanish students at all levels to fortify their knowledge and understanding of the grammatical topics covered in the book. This workbook can also be an eternal reference. This is definitely a worthy purchase and very economical considering the wealth of information that is offered. A strong recommendation is given, this a great grammar resource.


Great Spanish Practice Tool   October 16, 2003
 24 out of 25 found this review helpful

Spanish Pronouns and Prepositions is a great book for practicing these often forgotten parts of speech that are critical for achieving fluency in Spanish. 14 units, 3-12 pages each, each cover a different use of pronouns in Spanish, and prepositions (especially por and para) likewise receive extensive coverage. Each unit opens with a bit of reading, but the practice starts quickly. The book's translation exercises are especially valuable for learning vocabulary and forming sentences in context. The answers to all the exercises are in the back, so you can get instant feedback on how well you are doing.

I've noticed a problem with this text, however. While each unit includes at least several exercises, I feel that this is often not enough to gain a firm understanding of the material. With so many different uses of pronouns, for example, it is easy to forget the one done six units ago. And since the text teaches the uses of so many different prepositions, more practice with them would be helpful. As a result, I believe this book could be improved by including additional exercises in each unit, plus several review translation exercises that incorporate the content of multiple units.

Even with this minor problem, this book is easily the best workbook that I've seen for learning Spanish pronouns and prepositions. And for $10, it's tough to go wrong (Spanish workbooks inferior to this that are used in my college cost $20-30 or more). Go ahead, buy it!


No wonder drug   May 23, 2005
 24 out of 25 found this review helpful

For the price, this book can make a valuable contribution to everyone's goal of learning Spanish, but though I welcomed the practice, I did not feel the methodology was outstanding. For example, in each exercise you are basically limited to the grammatical point you have just read about so you don't really have to challenge yourself to recall what you learned 15 pages earlier. I think the translation exercises in the preposition section could have incorporated more pronouns to multiply practice, for example. So you finish the exercises using "lo que" and you think you have it, but that is usually because you do not revisit it later. There are no comprehensive exercises. In the preposition section there is much discussion distinguishing por and para, however in my mind I don't see much of a helpful distinction between one's purpose for doing something and one's motivation for doing something (which we are told is how you may to choose between the two in some instances). Also, we are told that when a person is receiving something from us use para, yet later many, many verbs are listed which require por and yet are defined as taking an action toward someone. Not surprisingly, despite all the theories we ultimately discover me must nevertheless memorize dozens of preposition-specific verbs anyway. If you finish the book you will see what I mean. This is not a fault of the author but a characteristic of the language. I especially like the perforated answer keys and wish other publishers would adopt the practice. The true/false sections are interesting reading at times, but take up a lot of the print allocated to exercises and should perhaps be condensed in future editions.