Product Description

A witty, fast-paced guide to eliminating Spanish bloopers for beginners

Mixing genders, inverting subjects and objects, and trusting falsos amigos (a.k.a., false cognates) are just a few of the blunders English-speaking Spanish-language learners commonly make. In Correct Your Spanish Blunders, veteran Spanish teacher Jean Yates identifies these and other common trouble spots and clearly explains the reasons behind them.

Learners discover how grammar patterns of Spanish differ from those of English and why trying to translate word for word, structure for structure, from English, can lead to big trouble.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #168062 in Books
• Published on: 2004-12-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 368 pages

From the Back Cover

Speak and write Spanish as if it were your native tongue!

Tired of making the same old mistakes of switching your genders, confusing your tenses, and mixing up your idioms? It happens--but before you get used to speaking Spanglish, consult this guide and break those bad habits that leave everybody you talk to scratching their head. Correct Your Spanish Blunders not only tells you what you've done wrong with more than 1,000 of your typical learner errors, clearly highlighted in red, it also explains the reasons behind the mistakes, so you can correct yourself in the future.

With the aim of improving your Spanish skills, this fun but comprehensive guide will help you avoid all the common pitfalls, such as:

• Mispronunciation and misspelling
• Applying English grammar patterns to Spanish
• Putting verbs in the wrong tense
• Using incorrect prepositions in expressions
• Forgetting agreements in gender and number
• Hanging out with falsos amigos (false cognates)

Correct Your Spanish Blunders contains exercises covering all parts of grammar and wraps it all up with review passages to check that you are blunder-free. Soon, biting your nails will be your only bad habit!

About the Author

Jean Yates teaches Spanish at George Washington University. She has also taught Spanish as a second language on the high school and community college levels and to adults in the workplace. She lives in Arlington, Virginia.

Customer Reviews

A Brilliant Book I Wish I Had Found Sooner!
I was unsure about whether or not I should buy this book originally, but as I owned almost every other Spanish book Amazon has on offer already, I decided to give it a go. After all, I think building my language resource library has become an obsession in its own right.

I have been learning Spanish off and on over the past several years (more off than on, truth be told.) I have amassed quite a large library of Spanish language resources and this has turned out to be one of the best books if not THE best book I've bought. I am at an intermediate level in Spanish and have found this book has cleared up all (or at least many!) of those niggling little questions and doubts that I have found confusing in my studies. It has helped immensely with the subtleties of the language that none of my teachers or other learning resources have addressed, for example the negative connotation associated with placing a demonstrative after the noun as in:

La niña esta me está fastidiando. - This pesky little girl is annoying me.

The above is an example of one of the intricacies of the language that I have not seen addressed elsewhere and which I would not have known to take issue with before seeing it in this book. But this is just one example. I have found quite a few "aha!" moments, one or two on almost every other page, and while I have always enjoyed learning Spanish, this is the first Spanish learning text that I've been unable to put down.

I had intended to read a small section and then reflect on what I had learned, but I have found it so fascinating that I have not been able to help but to go onto each subsequent blunder and realize how many of them apply to me. I'm over half way through the book (having had it delivered 2 days ago) and I find myself picking it up in every spare moment. My plan now is to read through the whole of the book and then re-read it at a more leisurely pace. If there is a downside to this book, then it is only "information overload" as I try to take it all in at once.

I am surprised that I am the first reviewer of this book as I have found it to be such a great find! I heartily recommend it! I only wish I could find more books by this author that were geared towards the intermediate/advanced student of Spanish.

Blunders about blunders
I was really excited about this book, and took it along for my Spanish born, Spanish Teacher to peruse, only to be told that there are many mistakes in the instruction given. She has told me to use it sparingly as it it not 100% accurate.

The best of my collection of beginner books
An excellent book . Very clear layout and a well written concise text .
The 'blunders' sections are very useful tips IMO . Two ink colours are used to good effect . Best of all , many Spanish examples are accompanied by their English translations . These are laid out side-by side such that it is childsplay to cover-up either the Spanish or the English with a piece of card or a post-it note . Hence the examples turn into little self tests , with ease . A lot of the information is laid out in short lists or in tables : both are very well done IMO . Highly recommended . And - a bargain . The only change I would make would be to add an accompanying audio CD .