Practice Makes Perfect Basic Spanish (Practice Makes Perfect Series)

I bought this book when I was helping a group of young women learn Spanish in the Philippines. I bought it as a guide and it was great! I am not sure if it is good for a person to use it for him or herself. I used it myself as a guide for my teaching lessons. It is basic, dynamic, and it has the essentials. But that is all it does. It is just a companion

Very good book and well put together. Good exercises for progressive learning. The only issue is that this book is written by an American and is therefore not strictly Castellano Spanish - it is presumably South American Spanish. Some of the words are not used in mainland Spain in the same way that some American English words are not used in England. Worth bearing in mind when you are in Spain.

Really good tool for embedding the start of this new-to-me language. As said by others, some of the phrases are very American but the grammar rules still count so that's fine. A really good series of challenges and I'll be back for more of the series.

I needed a book which was simple to understand and work through......this is it. Each unit is laid out in the same format introducing new words, excercises to complete and finishing off with a simple translation of Spanish to English test. My tip would be to complete the tests in pencil as all the answers are in the back of the book making it easy for you to test yourself and correct any errors.Excellent value and would highly recommend to Beginners.

very helpful

Really love the Practice Makes Perfect Spanish Books, it takes you through in a logical way that I can understand, really recommend

perfect condition, great

excellent book to learn from - i do this with my spanish tutor

Dorothy Richmond's knowledge in explaining a foreign language to a complete beginner is fantastic. She starts with familiar vocabulary like words related to housing, animals,and progresses on to more complex stuff. You just need to learn the vocabulary by heart and then the rules of grammar keep falling in place one by one. I plan to buy more books in the series.

Practice Makes Perfect are by far the best books for learning Spanish. I have many of them and all are fantastic and make learning fun and easy.

Well laid out

It is what I expected

アメリカの大学生です。こちらでスペイン語も勉強しています。個人的に、スペイン語は英語でのほうが理解しやすいのでこの教材を選びました。古い感じの本の紙質が私は好きです(笑)あと文法もボキャブラリーもベイシックレベルでいいです。クラスで使ってる教科書も併用して使ってます。

Fast service and so fare so good. I have a lot of learning to do!

練習用ドリルがたっぷりです。繰り返し動詞や名詞が出てくるので，動詞の活用を覚えたり語彙の習得にぴったりです。Hechos Divertidos（Fun　Facts)を流し読みするだけでも，ためになります。この値段でこんなに練習させてもらえるなんて！　現在形のみですが，語幹活用の動詞や再帰動詞もありますので，とにかく動詞の活用をみっちりしたい方，基礎を固めたい方にはぴったりです。私のように，下手に過去形や未来形に手を出して行き詰まった方，このワークで少し自信がつきます（笑）。英語がわかるなら，日本語抜きでスペイン語を習得しましょう！ただ，練習用のドリルなので，例文の内容は少々ヘンなものが含まれます。練習用なのであまり気にせずいきましょう。

"Basic Spanish" by Dorothy Richmond is the best book available for the beginning Spanish student. The two main goals of the book are to teach vocabulary and grammar. The vocabulary chosen for the book is overall very good. Many verbs are taught, which is different from many other books, which tend to under-emphasize verbs. Irregular verbs and stem changes are reviewed often enough that the learner can memorize when they apply. The book includes the various uses of the prepositions in Spanish and how to know when to use various prepositions, which is especially important since "por" and "para" have such diverse meanings.The grammar in the book is basic and taught thoroughly so that the learner is comfortable with the topics. Verb tenses are the major topic missing; a more advanced book will be needed for learning those. The grammar topics that are taught are constantly reviewed in the chapter reviews and in later exercises. The exercises also have solutions in the back of the book if you need them.Some of the other reviews say that this book is not for an absolute beginner, but I disagree. The only knowledge that is needed coming in is a basic understanding of English grammar. If you don't know what a direct object or the past tense is, then yes, this might not be basic enough, but in general I would recommend this for any learner, from middle school to adult.

I was surprised to hear that this book is not designed for beginners. I have several Spanish books for independent study and this is the one I like best. Many of my other books go into too much detail for someone just starting out--long lists of vocabulary to memorize, multiple grammar point introductions, etc. I really needed something very easy to jump-start me before I dived into the harder stuff. This one dishes it out in very palatable doses with just a few vocabulary words and just one or two grammar points in each lesson or only two or three pages. Yes, it's true that this book will not make you fluent and its scope is very modest. Still, after delving into all those other more intense books, this one worked for me. I don't feel frustrated and do feel that I'm beginning to build a small, but basic vocabulary and a few grammar concepts. One negative for me are all the contemporary cultural references--a lot of celebrities I've never even heard of. Still, that's only a small complaint and you quickly get used to it. Soon, I'll be ready to ratchet my study up a little and tackle 'Easy Spanish, Step by Step' and then 'Ultimate Spanish.' If I were in a class and had to learn 50 vocabulary words a day because of time limits, I'd opt for a more intense book, but since I'm studying Spanish primarily for fun and to be able to read Spanish literature, I need something with a more mellow attitude. Practice Makes Perfect Basic Spanish fits the bill for now.

I find this book good for reviewing my high school and college Spanish classes I taking. However, I am an older student and some of the questions are geared toward the younger population. For example, one question in the True and False section asks if Chris Martin of Coldplay plays the piano or not? Others ask ambiguous questions like: I play .... and listing 5 musical instruments - that could be answered either T or F. Or asking about cartoon characters on little kids shows today. That's great if you are teaching to a certain-aged population, but I am older and I am not into kids cartoons, I might not have read Harry Potter, or ever heard of the band Coldplay. So when I get to those questions, the book makes me feel frustrated and I question the relevance of it to my learning process if I have to look up other info that is not Spanish language related to figure out how to answer the questions.

Currently, I utilize Pimsleur, Rosetta Stone, and am working through this text. I am getting ready to move to Mexico (while I continue to work in the Gulf of Mexico, out of Louisiana). My fiancé is Mexican, and speaks very little English. So, I have been studying like crazy, and researching study methods like crazy. It is imperative that I rapidly get a grasp on Spanish. (My brain doesn't cary Google translate).This book has given me much more conversational functionality. The writing assignments have helped me immensely, especially the translation sections. The words and phrases which I have learned through this book thus far have easily integrated into my dialogue. Pimsleur has also been fantastic for this. Rosetta Stone is sorely lacking in aiding my dialogue, but has helped me in my reading comprehension (unless you are a pirate, or have adequate means, I do not recommend RS. IF "argh" is in your vocabulary, or your treasure chest is full, get it. It takes a long while to get past some of the annoying simplicity, and toward the end of level one gets WAY better! They can still make it a bit more challenging, in my opinion, but I digress.).There are some mistakes in the book, such as the over-use of nosotros (being used more than once in a sentence) and some other cosas pequeñas that a native speaker pointed out to me (sorry, but I do not recall them...). That is the only drawback, but is easy to overlook. PMP Basic Spanish is fun and diverse. I find the assignments quite enjoyable and interesting. Many of the Q & A's reference pop culture, both current and past. Often, when I get things wrong it is due to my lack of pop savvy! (I've learned a bit about Harry Potter since I started this book). Over all, I would highly recommend this book as a supplementation to your Spanish learning arsenal.

A solid book for learning/teaching Spanish. My children had 1 year of Spanish in Catholic school (ages 10 & 8). I am now homeschooling and chose this workbook to continue teaching them Spanish. I had 2 years of Spanish in high school and 1 year in college, so this book is a great refresher for me & allows me to properly teach my kids Spanish. My only issue with this workbook is that the book makes references to famous people that my kids have no clue about (Paris Hilton, for instance). I would recommend this workbook for beginners and kids older than 7 years of age.

Fun little workbook. I took Spanish in high school and was looking to refresh myself a little. This was a great start. Refreshed me on some vocabulary that I'd completely forgotten about (and even learned some stuff I didn't know!). The questions are a bit repetitive, but, quite frankly, that's what you need to drive the point home. The author does a great job of teaching new vocabulary and grammar and still bringing back the older stuff constantly so it doesn't just slip out of your mind. There's great "Did You Know" trivia sections, too, written in Spanish, are truly great bits of information and help practice your reading comprehension and translating skills.

This book is great for reviewing basic Spanish. I have worked only about 40 pages of the book, but have found it helpful and enjoyable. A new concept is introduced and then there are three to five pages that give you practice on that concept. It also builds so that the concept introduced in an earlier chapter is used in later chapters to that you continue to think about the concept instead of just leaving it in the past. The answer key is in the back so that you can compare answers and possibly figure out where your error is and learn how to do the exercise correctly. Going to buy more!

I love this book. I am a total beginner and am almost finished with this book. I love the way the exercises are laid out, build on one another, and remain focused on only the vocabulary you've learned so far. An excellent tool. Look forward to finishing one and moving on to the next book.I have tried Rosetta Stone--mind numbingly boring and slow. Good if pronunciation is your problem, but pronunciation isn't my problem. It teaches you as if you were a baby learning your first language. News flash--I am not an infant.I tried tutors, but the lack of structure was difficult. Once I have basic vocabulary, I will engage an tutor (online, from the region, via Skype) to enhance my learning and speaking skills.