Italian, French, and Spanish

Of course I already finished my university courses in Beginner's Italian and French, and intermediate Spanish. I plan on taking a course in the fall called "Writing in Italian" (which is the only intermediate course I can take) and a couple of advanced Spanish courses, "Advanced Spanish Composition" and "Contemporary Spanish Female Playwrights" I think it's called.

Spanish...The last Spanish course I took ("Spanish Oral 1") I didn't get an A or an A+ because I refused to do the main project worth 15%. The reason why I enrolled in such a course was to be able to improve my spoken ability so that I am more easily able to speak in real life conversations. Maybe learning idioms and slang would be helpful, but even if they consider that to be "too much" for an intermediate learner, the idea of speaking aloud about conversational topics would be helpful to anyone. For the project, we couldn't be creative, and there precious few topics one could present on. They all had to do with world issues - "negative" topics in my opinion, like deforestation in a certain area, or global warming. I can't imagine myself having a good chat with a Hispanic person about these types of things. I got a B in the course.

Italian...In Italian I would have done extremely well. I hadn't missed one test in school my entire life for any reason until last year. My alarm didn't go off on a test day and I woke up at 10:30, 30 minutes into the test. Good thing I had been doing really well other than that. If I weren't a motivated student and didn't study hard that could very well have hurt my mark quite a bit, but my final mark was a B+.

French... B+...I didn't do horribly but French labs were terrible for me. I already lacked confidence in pronunciation but then I'm put in front of a computer to talk to it and it doesn't talk back or help you out. Instead the lab monitor goes around and stops to talk to people about what they're doing... egh, I just thought it was weird. It's the only language I'm not taking in fall. That's not to say I won't take it again in school, but I'm going to use Pimsleur to help me feel more confident in my pronunciation before going back to classes in uni.

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I finished "Italian The Easy Way". It really is good for supplemental study if you're in a beginner's course in school. I'd also recommend it for complete beginners, as I had started with the book long before I took my first Italian course and found everything to be so well explained that I had no trouble understanding and then doing the exercises. Not everyone agrees with me though, I found out while reading reviews for the book on amazon.

There are plenty of exercises with an answer key in the back, a good English-Italian and Italian-English glossary. A wide variety of subjects, grammatical points, and vocabulary are covered, there are dots under letters to show where a stress is in pronouncing a word if the word is irregular as far as pronunciation, there are a variety of types of exercises (fill-in-the-blank, word search, crossword puzzles, being creative and making your own little stories which are the only exercises that there are no answers for). There are end-of-chapter reviews, and 3 "vocabulary checkpoints" with a list of vocabulary you should memorize before moving on, most of which you'll already have memorized just by being exposed to it already. I made flashcards for the ones I didn't know.

But...answer key has 1 answer only for each exercise when some things can be written/said in more than 1 way. The other minor thing is that a few times I've come across errors in the answer key or the answers in the answer key don't match up.

It was probably worth almost an entire year's worth of Italian in university though. Some people warned not to take it "as a substitute for a textbook" but I think this book (and a lot of other books, such as ones from the Practice Makes Perfect series) are waaaay more useful! Since starting university I haven't come across a language textbook yet that is better than one of those. And the even crazier thing is that you could buy the entire selection of Spanish (or French or Italian) PMP books for less than what one university textbook costs.

List of Great Books I've Used To Learn Spanish

I started learning Spanish in 2006 and since then have purchased many products to help me learn as much as possible. I've decided to make a list of products I've used that have helped me the most - the ones that are a huge reason why I can now have conversations completely in Spanish and speak with confidence. I've only included books that I've completed. There are some that I've finished about half of that I haven't included here, because I don't feel I should "review" products (even if they're really good so far) if I haven't completed them.

1) "Madrigal's Magic Key to Spanish"

This was the book that really got the "ball rolling" so to speak.
If you're starting from scratch I definitely recommend this book. Because of this book, which has a great pronunciation guide and goes through a lot of the verb tenses and a lot of the common verbs as well as vocabulary (from the beginning of the book, you find out you actually already know hundreds of words in Spanish, because they're the same in English) I was able to have basic conversations by the end of it and actually feel confident in speaking, which is a big deal to me! There are little reminder cards the author tells you to make to glance at when you have a moment as well as a variety of exercises and tests to help you remember what you've learned. This is a great book to prepare you for more "intermediate" books such as "Practice Makes Perfect: Spanish Verb Tenses" and "Practice Makes Perfect: Spanish Pronouns and Prepositions". Another popular "complete beginner" book that I haven't gone through but have seen excellent reviews for is "Getting Started with Spanish: Beginning Spanish for Homeschoolers and Self-Taught Students of Any Age" by William E. Linney. Another one, "Practice Makes Perfect: Beginning Spanish with CD-ROM" comes out on October 22, 2010.


2) "Practice Makes Perfect: Spanish Verb Tenses"

After I finished Magic Key I started going through this book. It's full of useful information that will help you understand how to use verbs in different tenses. The explanations are clear and there are examples with plenty of useful exercises (mostly translating sentences and paragraphs but there are a few true and false). There is an answer key to the exercises at the back as well as a good Spanish-English and English-Spanish glossary. After finishing this book I remember feeling a lot more confident with verb tenses and being amazed that these types of books were as inexpensive as they were. This book wasn't what I'd call "fun" but it will absolutely help the serious student improve their Spanish. After all, you find verbs in almost all sentences, so it's important to be able to use them correctly!

3) "The Ultimate Spanish Verb Review and Practice"

Going through just this book or just PMP: Spanish Verb Tenses is very helpful in itself. Going through both is an even better idea as going through the second book reinforces what you've learned from the first book. Also, there are some things one book goes over that the other doesn't. (goes both ways) One thing I remember off the top of my head that is shown very clearly in this book that I don't remember from PMP is the way you use the "passive voice": How to say things like :
"The food was prepared." vs. "The food was prepared by the chef."
(When it isn't specifically stated that someone is doing the action, you would use `estaba' for the word `was', and when you include who did the action, you would use `fue'), so, "La comida estaba preparada." vs. "La comida fue preparada por el cocinero". Just like the PMP book though, there are lots of exercises and really good, clear explanations on all the tenses as well as an answer key in the back. And just like the PMP book, this one is about $10.


4) "Practice Makes Perfect: Spanish Pronouns and Prepositions"

Pronouns and prepositions often pose a problem to students learning Spanish because they work quite differently than they do in English. Dorothy Richmond, the same author of PMP: Spanish Verb Tenses, does an excellent job explaining how and when pronouns and prepositions are used. These explanations are followed by examples and plenty of useful exercises. And of course, there's a glossary of words at the back and an answer key. Once again, it's not a "fun" book, but it is a very valuable tool for those who are serious about learning Spanish. The best way to master a language and its "parts" is to practice practice practice, which is why I love these books. I went through this book after the PMP Verb Tenses one.

5) "Practice Makes Perfect: The Spanish Subjunctive Up Close"

For intermediate and advanced learners, the subjunctive in Spanish can definitely pose a problem. The best way to get over this hurdle is to have it clearly explained to you. You'll want to know when to use each of the subjunctive's four tenses and why. The book also lets you know when the subjunctive should not be used. This book (of course) also allows you to practice what you've learned. There are plenty of exercises and an answer key. Because you're actually doing many practice exercises instead of just reading about the subject you're very likely to retain most of what you learned.


6) "Practice Makes Perfect: Advanced Spanish Grammar"

After going through the books already listed I decided to pick up this one. And I got more than I expected. You'll learn how to phrase things in different ways, how to use conjunctions (practicing writing and reading sentences using words like : in spite of, despite, not only.. but also, however, otherwise, since, so, still/yet, therefore, when, while, for, both... and, either...or/neither...nor, besides, although, though, and, as, etc). There's a section on some/any and other determiners. There's a section on problematic prepositions, too. Also included is a chapter on idiomatic constructions which includes useful expressions that if directly translated to English would not completely make sense (eg."llover sobre mojado" refers to adding one problem to another problem but literally translated would be in English like, "To rain over wet".) There is a lot more offered but I wanted to keep this short. Once again, though, there are clear explanations, plenty of exercises, and an answer key at the back.

7) "Schaum's Outline of Spanish Vocabulary"

Great for high-beginner to high-intermediate learners of Spanish! There are certain words you just do not typically learn as a beginner in Spanish. Once you do have that "basic" foundation though, this book can help you expand your knowledge and be able to have more confidence talking and reading about 30 different topics. This book is full of exercises as well which is great because you can practice what you learn. I was not very sure how helpful this book would be as I had already studied Spanish (well, it was on and off) for a year and 10 months, and the topics seemed like they would be easy to talk about, like things around the home, in the restaurant, crime, sports, travel, etc, but after going through the book I realized how much I actually did not know and how much the book helped me. Answers are in the back which is nice and the book is very affordable.