Spanish for Dummies

I agree with the reviewer who said that it should not be used alone. Actually, what I am finding after trying to learn Spanish for business for about a year, is that there is NO single resource that can be used alone.

I travel a lot on business to various Spanish speaking countries and this is the book that I take along most often. It deserves a place in your Spanish-learning library.

My experience has been that to learn Spanish on your own, you need books, tapes, dictionaries, videos, Spanish TV, newspapers, PLUS you have to practice, practice, practice with native speakers. Every type of resource you can think of. If you want to learn quickly, move to a Spanish speaking country for a year and devote the year to learning Spanish. Otherwise, it will require persistence and patience.


Not to be used alone   February 17, 2002
 124 out of 129 found this review helpful

Im trying to learn spanish because I live in Miami and I think I'll have a better time getting a job if I can speak it. However, this book is really like a primer book for the absolute basics. personally, I dont think anything beats a computer program for pronounciation. On the computer, you can hear certian words over and over and have the program help you pronouce. But, I find the computer programs to be pretty much useless unless you already know the basics of the language, so I think this book would go perfectly with any material that teaches at a higher level. And in response to the person who gave this book one star I would say that this book is not designed to get you fluent, its for people who have no clue when it comes to the language and I think its excellent at preparing you for the real study of spanish


Spanish for Physicians, Patients and Everyone   April 5, 2000
 123 out of 129 found this review helpful

This book 'Spanish for Dummies' is a joy to read. The author stresses learning at your own speed. I am learning Spanish so that I can converse with my ever-increasing population of Spanish-speaking patients. It really makes a difference. I see lots of smiles when I struggle to get the accent correct. The book comes with a CD that is invaluable for pronunciation. Have Fun!


My first Spanish book   November 25, 2003
 63 out of 67 found this review helpful

I have familiarity with several languages but just started studying Spanish about 6 months ago. This was the first book I bought. I agree that this is not sufficient by itself. It has a lot of good side bar information as well as dialogues and highlights of important words. However, I found that it also has a lot of items that are inappropriate for the level that is being taught. A simple example is the first verb taught is "trabajar"- to work. A much simpler one could be used when you are learning pronunciation/conjugation. Also dialogues used past and future tenses which are not even taught in this book (they are listed with the verb conjugations). Now that I have more knowledge, I am going back and reading it again and am getting a lot more out of it. I would pick a simpler book for my first one were I to do it again-- but not a phrase book. Another aspect of this book is that it has a lot of sections like "at the marketplace". Those are words less well known and not really that helpful or essential at this stage of my progression. There are a lot more valuable words to be learned first. I have also studied tapes like Pimsleur at the same time and it was excellent on continuous building one block at a time. I also found that often when I tried to look up a word in the included dictionary, it wasn't there, so a separate one is really required.


Useless   September 14, 2001
 54 out of 63 found this review helpful

I now have about 10 different books, tapes, and CDs for learning Spanish. I bounce back and forth among them as each has stengths and weaknesses. Except for the this pretty useless Idiot's book, which is too heavy to be a phrase book and too light weight to actually teach you anything. Fortunately, I only checked this out of the library rather than wasting money on it. On the positive side, you can listen to and repeat the phrases on the CD to help with pronunciation. But for really learning the language, I direct you to Hugo's Latin American Spanish in Three Months.