Education Textbooks Reviews

Many of us would love to learn to speak Spanish however can't fend the time each day for study. The Spanish in 10 minutes a day course offer a great alternative to more traditional, and time consuming courses. The book is aimed firmly at beginner students, and the colorful and easy to read format will appeal to children as well as make it a fun product for adults. A nice change from boring and dry text only books, the Spanish in 10 minutes a day includes plenty of full color illustrations to accompany the lessons and vocabulary, making it easy to pick up the words. Most of the vocabulary relates to every day life, so you can apply it as you go about your day, extending your learning time well past the 10 minutes without any effort. This is the beauty of the book - you only need to spend ten minutes each day familiarizing yourself with new material and you will find yourself thinking about and even using the words well past your study time.

One of the biggest frustrations for Spanish learners is that try as they might, they just can't seem to get the words to "stick". This book solves that problem, literally. There are 150 fun stickers that relate to objects that you will commonly find in your home or office, and while the one for "perro" may not be practical for labeling your pet dog, it only takes a few days of seeing the stickers to learn words for items such as "mirror", "lamp" or "door".

Once you have gone through all of the vocabulary in the book, a set of cut-out flash cards provides a way for you to test your knowledge and make sure that you have memorized and understood all of the words. The flash cards are printed on sturdy card, and are a handy pocket size so they are practical for keeping with you for pop quizzes any time you have a few moments spare.

There is very little grammar or verb conjugation work covered in the book, which is not a bad thing for beginners. Instead, the book focuses on providing a strong amount of everyday vocabulary and key phrases to give students the confidence and encouragement to build on their studies. The vocabulary given is highly useful, and when combined with the small pocket guide included in the book, can help you to get by in many different situations, and is particularly handy for people wanting to learn some key phrases to use while on holiday in a Spanish speaking country.

It has been well documented that when learning is fun you remember more, and you are more likely to continue to learn. Where other courses may leave you frustrated, this refreshing book offers many interesting and entertaining ways to keep you engaged and enjoying the learning experience. This book is highly recommended for beginner Spanish students of all ages, and is a particularly great way to learn Spanish as a family.

In closing my review of this product, I'd like to share with you the three Amazon products that I have found most helpful in my pursuit to learn Spanish. If you are truly serious about achieving fluency, I'd recommend getting all 3 of them if you can afford it.

1. Lights, Camera, Spanish (Book + DVD): Learn Conversational Spanish by Watching a Romantic Adventure This is actually a 90 minute movie for Spanish-language learners. It gives the option to watch the movie with subtitles but I'd recommend not using them to improve your Spanish. This "movie" also includes a workbook so that you can reinforce the Spanish vocabulary words and phrases from the film. The workbook also has lots of exercises to keep you engaged in the film. But be prepared to hear Chilean accents. Although pleasant to the ear, the accents from Chile are very different from most Latin American accents.

2. Verbarrator Version 1.1 (Windows Version) This software replaces the traditional verb conjugation books and makes learning how to conjugate Spanish verbs an interactive and fun activity. This should be a required resource for anyone who wants to improve their ability to conjugate Spanish verbs. Especially anyone who is challenged by the drudgery of learning how to conjugate Spanish verbs and who is looking for a new way to make learning how to conjugate Spanish verbs an easy and fun activity

3. Diccionario esencial de la lengua espanola de la Real Academia Espanola (Spanish Edition) If you are really serious about speaking the language fluently, then at some point you will need to replace your Spanish-English dictionary and get a pure Spanish dictionary with both the vocabulary words and the definitions entirely in Spanish. I use this one mainly because it was highly-recommended by a friend from Spain who teaches Spanish. According to him, this is the "standard" among university level Spanish professors.