Complete Spanish Grammar 2nd Edition

I've been disappointed in other grammar books, but this one makes everything so clear and precise! It is, by far, the best Spanish grammar book I've seen.I see another reviewer said that if you don't understand the terms in English grammar, you won't be able to follow along. While I know my English grammar pretty well, I still feel they do a great job explaining things in here. I will give an example:Lesson 1:To conjugate a verb in the present tense or in any other tense, you will need the root of a verb and the particular ending that expresses information about the action you wish to communicate. You will find the root (or radical) of the verb in its infinitive form. It is easy to spot an infinitive in English because it is preceded by the word to: to shop, to learn, to receive, etc. Infinitives in Spanish are not preceded by a particular word but can be recognized by one of three endings: -ar, -er, or -ir. The infinitive endings are attached to the root of the verb: habl + ar, beb + er, decid + ir. ...As you can see, it tells you what has to be done, then tells you quite clearly HOW to spot an infinitive in English. Subsequently, I found it strange to see other reviewers complaining that if you don't understand it in English, you won't know how to find it here. I find the book to be incredibly useful.To study Spanish I'm using several systems: Instant Immersion software + Fluencia online. Last night I added in memrise to assist with vocabulary memorization ( a great free website). I felt compelled to find a useful grammar workbook because these approaches don't teach grammar at the beginning, and I was feeling a bit confused. I know they plan to teach grammar later, but as a writer by trade, I wanted to understand the grammar structure sooner, rather than later. This book is entirely useful in that respect, and I can say I'm utterly thrilled with it.

This is an amazing resource for practicing essential grammar. I use it regularly, and even repeat the exercises after a few months to refresh my memory. I love the fact that they use a number of different techniques for each chapter (e.g., single word responses, true or false, translation exercises) so that you can really drum the conjugation and use patterns into your head from different angles. Each chapter also comes with very clear explanations of the grammar. This has REALLY helped me with my study of the subjunctive. My Spanish teacher informs me that a few of the grammatical approaches in the book has are specific only to Central American Spanish, so you should definitely see this as a complement for studies that include other resources - including a good teacher if you have that available to you!

I am rating this book 4 out of 5 stars because the book itself is superb, yet it is useless in its current Kindle format.This is a great grammar book . I moved to Argentina knowing only "si" and "no" in Spanish but I took this grammar with me and was able to learn Spanish using just it and a tutor who used it as a guide. Covering the range of conjugations -- verbs being as important to the language as vocabulary -- it is laid out in such a way that the raw beginner can use it as a basic workbook and can progress to more sophisticated usage along the way, while the book itself remains useful forever for reference and review.I am therefore dismayed that the Kindle version has a serious glitch: the examples, crucial to this book, remain in a tiny font and cannot be enlarged. This puts my stand-by, favorite Spanish grammar book out of reach to me and any Kindle user whose vision requires the slightest magnification of the letters. I am unable to read the examples even with a magnifying glass, which should not be necessary anyway with the marvelous Kindle technology. In other words, the publisher of this and other Practice Makes Perfect books (I have two others in my Kindle with the same problem) must redesign the Kindle version to make the examples subject to the same rules of magnification, or at least make their font size as large as the main text. Or else it remains useless.I use my Kindle a lot, largely because of its ability to magnify the text as well as its other amazing conveniences, and was looking forward to carrying in the one place all my beloved Practise Makes Perfect Spanish language aides, but alas must go to the bookstore and purchase these excellent works in paperback. Let us hope that all such McGraw Hill publications are soon modified for effective use on the Kindle -- they deserve it.

I took the Rosetta Stone Spanish course, which by the way was very good and helpful. I knew I also needed to study the grammar, not just the pronunciation. This book is full of exercises, and if you study it at your pace, you'll get addicted to it and tied up for a while. Every chapter has a translation at the end, which is very manageable and not too hard. I am very happy that I bought this book. It was very reasonably priced and I am very happy I bought it.

My go-to Spanish book before purchasing this one was Easy Spanish Step-by-Step, and I thought this one would be a good complement. I was disappointed. The author of this book had a wonderful concept in laying out the book, but I find it is short on explanation. It is either at a level much higher than I am at or I made incorrect assumptions about the content. I am at high beginner/intermediate level. This book presumes you already have the "rules" down and are looking to strengthen by completing exercises. It would probably be excellent for that purpose. At my level it is just too much work to complete the exercises without going back and forth to a reference source, like the Easy Spanish book mentioned above. There is an answer guide in the back if you just wanted to use it to study "how it's done" rather than to do it yourself. Again, disappointed at this point, but am reserving the right to learn more and come back later to see if it becomes more clear as I learn more.

I love that manual. It is the perfect tool for a beginner who plans to learn spanish by himself. I would recommend it to anyone.

Again, with these 2 books and some effort, you can be reasonably conversant in a short time and if you work at it, fluent within 4 months.

Really good grammar book to use which doesn't over complicate things, I love practising with these books, teaches me how to use grammar properly and use verb conjugations and understand what the different tenses are used for. This book doesn't bore you to death with just passages of text. It gets straight to the point so you feel like you are really progressing. These books are so good that I purchased them for French, Spanish and Italian as I am studying these languages at a language school and they have been very helpful. I want to be as proficient as I can in the languages that I am learning! I recommend for people who are afraid of grammar when learning languages, this will show you that grammar is nothing to be feared of!

Edit: Ich erhöhe meine Benotung auf 4 Sterne. Der Erklärungen im Buch sind einfach besser als in vielen anderen Büchern oder Online-Resourcen. Auch schätze ich es immer mehr, das hier wirklich auf den Inhalt wert gelegt wird, und nicht tolle bunte Bilder das Buch teuer machen. Aber trotzdem bleibt die Kritik an zu kleinen Lücken und Übungen, die man einfach schlecht alleine machen kann.Hier meine ursprüngliche Rezension:Das französische äquivalent dieses Buches kann nur wärmstens empfehlen, die spanische Version leider nur mit Abstrichen.Das Buch ist ja als Arbeitsbuch gedacht, die Antworten soll man in das Buch schreiben sollen. Wenn man denn Platz dafür hätte.Soll man einen Satz übersetzen, so gibt es dahinter Platz um die Übersetzung aufzuschreiben. Leider viel zu wenig, weniger als der gedruckte Satz davor. Da Handschrift üblicherweise MEHR Platz benötigt als gedruckte Schrift, verstehe ich nicht, warum die Autoren WENIGER Platz zur Verfügung stellen. Was haben die sich dabei gedacht?Dann gibt es Aufgaben mit offenen Antworten. Das Buch ist ja eindeutig für das Selbststudium ausgelegt, wie soll ich dann bitte meine persönliche Antwort mit einer Lösung vergleichen ?Inhaltlich kann ich nicht besonders viel sagen, weil ich noch nicht sehr weit gekommen bin, aber didaktisch hat das Buch einige Mängel. Die französische Version ist wesentlich sinnvoller gestaltet.

This book is really adapted for a beginner student like me.. the book has clear explanation, and most of all they don't missed their delivery time.. kudos Amazon!