1001 Most Useful Spanish Words (Beginners' Guides)

P.S. I think the person who gave this book a poor rating was being extremely unkind. This book never says it's anything other than it is. A book to build vocabulary. It's not a dictionary. Dictionaries cost a lot more, and are heavy. (This book weighs 2 oz.!)


Spanish - Light & Easy!   August 6, 2000
 94 out of 101 found this review helpful

A light (and I really mean light - the book weighs about 2 ounces) and helpful book for anyone trying to build their Spanish vocabulary. Printed by the good people at Dover Publications, the book lacks the fancy designs, illustrations, and other graphics that books are generally well known for, however it is a very resourceful book to have around.

Author Seymour Resnick does a great job in compiling the 1,001 most used words in the Spanish language, however there is one negative thing about this book. There is not a pronunciation guide throughout the whole book. Although it's not a dictionary, it is always helpful to have this reference mentioned in a foreign-language book. Besides this fault, this book will make excellent reading material for anyone trying to brush up on their Spanish before a trip, meeting, or just to chat with a friend or relative.


Useful on a small scale   September 3, 2002
 35 out of 36 found this review helpful

This book has about 50 pages of dictionary, followed by word lists by category (such as the family, days, months, numbers, colors, foods, and animals, among others), and finally a page of "vocabulary tips," which are things like "English -ous is often Spanish -oso."

One major disadvantage of this book is that the dictionary section is Spanish-English and there is no English-Spanish section. Obviously, with only a little over a thousand words, the book is not meant to be an exhaustive dictionary, and it does not really function as one. I was surprised at how useful I found one part of the book- the list of foods (Spanish-English, like the dictionary section). There were many words on this list that I did not know but felt I should, such as "almond" and "celery."

I went through the dictionary section and found that each page (with about 22 words) had an average of 4 words I didn't know. (To give background on my Spanish knowledge, I have taken 4 years of high school Spanish, plus a lot of reading and studying in my spare time). I happily highlighted those words and began studying them, since they are, as the title claims, very useful. I think that this book might be most helpful for someone who has taken around 2 years of high school Spanish, as that person would know far fewer of the words. On the other hand, it might be an overwhelming amount to memorize, so maybe not.

Here is an example entry taken from the book (I think this falls under fair use...):
"arrojar to throw Se prohibe arrojar objetos por la ventanilla. It is forbidden to throw things out of the window." At times the entry will also specify that the word is used in a certain country or region, which is very helpful considering the variation in the language in different Spanish-speaking countries.

All in all, a useful little book, and a good resource for learning Spanish. Its scope is small, but it achieves what it aims for very well.


Short, Sweet & to the Point   September 17, 2001
 25 out of 28 found this review helpful

1001 Most Userful Spanish Words is the Dover Thrift version of a Spanish Dictionary.

At barely over 50 pages it packs alot in for the price. The bulk of the book is Spanish -English dictionsary. It includes nouns, verbs and adjectives, whether its masculine or feminine, the word used in a sentence in Spanish, then translated into English.

The last few pages are devoted to groupings of words including numbers, colors, seasons, months, days of the week, food, family, professions, animals and stores.

It concludes with one page on vocab tips.

Also recommended: Spanish for Gringos:Level 2 (ISBN 0764170120), (Breaking Out of Beginner's Spanish(ISBN 029274322X) and Rapanese : the Musical Method of Learning Spanish: Series (1,2 &3) (ISBN 1886447160).