“The Ultimate Spanish Review and Practice”

A lot of my regular readers have asked me to recommend some books/tools that they may be able to use to help them hone and practice their Spanish skills. It is for that reason that I’d like to tell you about a great book entitled “The Ultimate Spanish Review and Practice” by Ronni L. Gordon and David M. Stillman.

I purchased this book after completing four years of high school Spanish to review what I had learned over the past four years. I more or less felt as though I already had a good understanding of basic grammar; however, I wanted to “revisit” some of the things that I had learned and go more “in-depth” with the language. Over the summer between my high school graduation and my first year at college, I read this book cover-to-cover and, by the time I entered college in the fall as a Spanish major, this book had put me light-years ahead of my peers.  Don’t get me wrong, I attribute much of my Spanish success in college to my high school teacher; however, I feel as though this book really did help out quite a bit as well.

Just so you know, this book is not for those of you who do not speak much Spanish at all; instead, it’s for those of you who already know the basics of the language and want some review of what you already know as well as an introduction to some of the more complex parts of the language. The cover of the book actually says it’s for “intermediate and advanced learners” and I’d agree with that.

The book is laid out in chapters and each chapter presents some grammatical points and then gives you some exercises in which you can practice what you’re learning. The answers to all the exercises are found at the end of the book. One nice thing about the grammar explanations is that they’re clear and concise – the authors tell you what you need to know and show you how the rules work without going into too much detail and boggling your mind. I’m told that the newest edition of the book also comes with an Audio CD that includes practice exercises. Since I bought my edition a few years ago, I do not have that CD. Still, I’d be willing to bet that it compliments the written practice in the book nicely and probably even helps with pronunciation and listening comprehension.

Whether you want to read this book cover-to-cover like I did or prefer to have it as a simple reference for when you forget a rule, I think that “The Ultimate Spanish Review and Practice” would probably be beneficial for those of you who have an intermediate level in Spanish. The book gives you a good amount of grammar practice without going too deeply into the more obscure aspects of the language.

I hope sharing my opinion has helped someone. Feel free to leave your comments about this book (or any other similar one you’d like people to know about) on this post. I have linked to this book on Amazon throughout this post so that you can go there and read more about it.

Hasta luego,
–Chris
http://abroadinspain.com