Spanish Conversation (Practice Makes Perfect) 1st Edition

I took college Spanish and was at a *complete* loss on how to actually communicate or comprehend anything spoken. This book is excellent. It has so many conversational examples and usage of words that really help expand knowledge of the language. Many of these phrases I would have never thought to use since Spanish can be so different from English. This book helped a lot with so many excellent examples. I think if you're in the same boat I was where you can conjugate verbs all day long, but not understand the radio or Spanish TV, this book will be very helpful to you. Reading and rereading the example phrases and saying them out loud has expanded my conversational knowledge by leaps and bounds. This book is such a small expense for what you get.

This book helps students learn vocabulary and verb constructions in context, through example, and with practice. My friend from Guatemala and I are using this book to help each other. I'm learning Spanish, and he is learning English. With the Spanish version on one side of the page and the English version on the other side, it is convenient for us to read to each other in the conversational style in Spanish, then in English. The exercises are for Spanish learners, but there are sections called "Improving your conversation" that provide a lot of information about usage, tenses, etc. that my Spanish-speaking friend finds helpful also. The material is challenging enough for intermediate students. I recommend this book for practicing Spanish at this level.

It's a useful book to remind you of certain conversation settings, it's pretty thin so you can take it around with you. It doesn't really help learning Spanish without other context but it's a good addition to practice common situations and how to sound a little more native. I like that it often gives a few options of how to say things so you learn some variety. I use it with my husband and we try and practice the dialogues - it should be used interactively in my opinion, just reading it won't help much as the information itself isn't anything new or that can't be found even in standard Spanish books - it is more a different approach of displaying common situations so you can learn to be more comfortable during small talk. It's often the little sentences in Spanish that make a big difference!

I am an intermediate speaker in south florida, teaching myself speaking spanish. I have used many of the podcast and speaking courses qavailable, and now using this book is an excellent way of putting a lot of stuff into practical use. I enjoy the broad coverage in the exdrcises, using all levels of tenses and phraases and sitauations, that chat challenge. I wish it was somewhat better orgqanized...is some cases it starts talking about topic x, and in the same section winds up on topic z. The topic headlines need work. You do need a dictionary and verb book for the great exercises.I hiighly recommend this. Too bad not available as a kindle or iphone text.

As a teacher I LOVE this book. Lots of real conversations that can essentially be memorized, subbing your own personal info.NOT for the beginner, since it presumes that you know your way around commands, past tenses, and subjunctive.It is great for adding variety and accuracy to your conversational vocabulary. And a great way to reinforce your knowledge of subjunctive!I found the explanation of "aunque" to be very confusing, and therefore the exercises of 3.8 and 3.9. A "may" or a "might" might make the situations be clearer, rather than "info known or not known to reader - (which can be taken as "listener" perhaps).

As someone who studied a bit in the past, forgot some easy things, knew a few intermediate things, this great buy really gives you many fine points to help you start to actually speak the language. It's a book for someone who's already gone through a basic/elementary book. You'll get the maximum benefit if you pay attention to many parts of the conversations that aren't even emphasised: I'm referring to the tricky aspect of languages where you can't do word for word translations and the different way prepostions are used. Want to say "about" something in Spanish? Use "de"(!)--and there are many other little stumbling blocks like that, which will either frustrate you or, like me, fascinate you. Like I said, it's a great buy.

This book was recommended by someone that works at an American Embassy in a spanish speaking country. I took 4 years of spanish in high school but that was years ago. I am hopeful that this will help me when interacting with others that still haven't learned English. I know the book is good after flipping through it. My husband and I want to become bilingual next year and with him working toward the same goal it will make learning spanish fun and exciting. I have already started learning and can't wait to become fluent.

I started studying spanish with Duolingo. I then added Mastering Spanish Grammar. However, I was still very uncomfortable with conversations. This Spanish Conversation gave me clarity as to how these various phrases are used in what context. I am very happy I have found this book.

The collection title is “Practice Makes Perfect”, which is why I bought it; and there is indeed plenty of practice in the book. Therefore OK so far.But there are three non-trivial downsides in my particular case.1) It's aimed at students but seems to forget that conversations aren't always about school. Virtually all the examples illustrate conversations between or with students.Now that in itself is not a showstopper, but...2) It's aimed at US students. If you don't know the vocabulary of the US schooling system you'll be constantly looking up things like "majoring" and "sophomore". And that really is annoying.Probably most the serious downside, though, is3) It's basically a book for learning Latin American Spanish. The occasional token Eurospanish expression is thrown in for good measure, but the book is essentially written for people who drive "carros" and "se enojan" with each other.Now, all those are fine if that's what you are looking for, but there should be a big warning on the cover to that effect.Another niggling flaw for the male reader is that a majority of examples have female protagonists (woman author, you see). If you're a bloke, you have to be on a constant lookout for -o/-a booby traps (no pun intended). I'm not criticizing the author too much because it's something a native English speaker never has to think about in their own language, therefore it requires a special effort to neutralize or at rather equalize gender when visiting a language where it has a much bigger incidence. This author doesn't seem to make that effort.

One of the most useful in this excellent series. It is set out under headings of various situations, and gives you useful words and phrases for these situations. This is indispensable book to complement the more grammatically oriented ones.

Not great. Confusing. The paper quality is appalling. The lay out & self testing section isn't well presented or explained. Not as good as other practice makes perfect books. Wouldn't buy again.

I like this series of books. Cover each subject well

Exactly what I needed a book to help me in my conversation now I have the basic understanding of Spanish. It is just what was needed to help me further my Spanish language.