(Part 2) Top products from r/learnspanish

Some years ago, I wrote a screenplay for a short film about a cursed Aztec sword that was found by a Young man in modern times, and he fought against all kind of monsters and creatures from Mexican folklore and mythology.

This was never filmed, but we took a lot of conceptual pictures, and some friends made a few drawings, we even build a real black macuahuitl.

Using this old drawings (with the approval of the friends who drew it), I finished the prologue of the story, in storybook form. It’s a very short story, and I made it bilingual, so people who knows english or spanish are able to read it.

It has 16 pages with drawings, but the digital version will be free until tuesday, so, if someone wants to download it, I’ll add the links on Amazon Mexico and Amazon US (It's free in every marketplace).

Thank you for taking the time to read this, downloading it, and giving me your opinion.

Black Macuahuitl on Amazon US: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07JR4SCMF

Black Macuahuitl on Amazon MX: https://www.amazon.com.mx/dp/B07JR4SCMF

This is a great little review book of grammar exercises for ~$7 on Amazon (used).
https://www.amazon.com/Ultimate-Spanish-Practice-Foreign-Language/dp/0071847588

I like the Anki flashcard app for reviewing vocabulary.

Children's television is great for listening practice. It can be helpful to think about what region you'll be visiting most often and consume their local media as slang can vary greatly. (I generally consume Argentine media as that's where I visit most frequently: Mundo Zamba and Tiranos Temblad are two good examples on YouTube).

MeetUp.com often has conversation groups that meet for lunch of coffee to get some low-pressure speaking practice in. Universities usually have clubs that do the same.

Reading material I also recommend starting with children's stories. And again I focus my experiences on Argentina, e.g. Luis Pescetti and Pablo de Santis

For a grammar book, I would suggest either the Practice Makes Perfect Spanish series, since they have a lot of different workbooks on different subjects. They have one called Basic Spanish which targets beginners: link

Also, there's the Easy Spanish Step by Step series: link

Both have exercises, vocabulary and answer keys to everything so for written practice, they can be pretty helpful!

Practice Makes Perfect Spanish... https://www.amazon.com/dp/0071841857?ref=ppx_pop_mob_ap_share

I really like this workbook-there are a ton of examples and many english sentences, expressions and paragraphs that you translate into Spanish. I find it very challenging and interesting.
I like grammar so please keep that in mind.

Im currently going through Easy Spanish Step-by Step by Barbara Bregstein. It has pretty decent explanations with exercises that follow. They are decently priced on amazon.

I would also suggest the library. Mine has a lot of audio books including pimsleur, subscription to Mango languages free for members and tons of other resources.

This is the first one:
https://www.amazon.com/Spanish-Step-Step-Barbara-Bregstein/dp/0071463380/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1524764568&sr=8-3&keywords=easy+spanish

I also bought the second book but have not started it:
https://www.amazon.com/Advanced-Spanish-Step-Step-Accelerated/dp/0071768734/ref=pd_sim_14_3?_encoding=UTF8&pd_rd_i=0071768734&pd_rd_r=QHCHPW7S4D9WRY7E7J42&pd_rd_w=lSsan&pd_rd_wg=HDnwj&psc=1&refRID=QHCHPW7S4D9WRY7E7J42

I also bought this book to help with verbs because verbs are a huge part of spanish
https://www.amazon.com/Ultimate-Spanish-Review-Practice-Second/dp/0071797831/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1524764647&sr=1-1&keywords=The+ultimate+spanish+verb

Last November I went to Argentina with essentially no knowledge of Spanish. I started off using this. It's pretty solid. The section on grammar is really short, but it has plenty of conversational phrases, a very basic dictionary, and simple conjugation charts for maybe 15 or so of the most frequently used verbs.

It was pretty helpful. I also used this book as an introduction to grammar: http://www.amazon.com/English-Grammar-Students-Spanish-Learning/dp/0934034303

You can pick up a decent 2 way dictionary in BsAs, there are bookstores everywhere. Walrus Books sells mostly used English language books but I found a cheap Spanish-English dictionary there as well as one of those "500 verb conjugations" books.

Enjoy your time in Argentina!


Edit: Obviously the book isn't specific to Argentine Spanish, but you'll figure it out quickly.


The vos form is simple; just drop the i from the vosotros form, unless the i is an í in which case there won't a preceding é or á. And in the pretérito vos is identical to tú. And in the imperativo just drop the d of the vosotros form, and stress the final syllable.


There are differences in a lot of vocabulary, but people will understand you fine and fill you in on what the Argentine word choice would be if you ask them to.

Penguin books releases a series called Cuentos in Espanol. Basically, they are proper short stories by great writers but one page is in Spanish and the opposite has the literal translation in English. Really great resource and you don't feel like a 4 year old.

Here's one:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Spanish-Short-Stories-Cuentos-Parallel/dp/0140265414/ref=sr_1_8?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1332104846&sr=1-8

One thing you should definitely focus on is verb tenses. This is an excellent workbook I've used in the past. It will summarize all the different tenses and force you to use them. It will also introduce some new vocabulary for you so you will want a Spanish dictionary handy.

Some college-level texts are also recommended here, but they might be more detailed than you need. I believe the general placement tests are generally easier than the CLEP (which I am taking), but they are usually geared to high school students with at least a few semesters under their belt.

I would second Duolingo -- it has dozens (hundreds?) of lessons divided into bite-sized chunks. Most importantly, it exposes you to listening to spanish phrases.

I also find the Teach Yourself line of language books to very good for learning quickly -- they're not very grammar heavy and focus mostly on teaching you to have simple conversations. I'm a fan of this one: http://amzn.com/0071420169

I used this book when I went to Spain and found it very helpful: The Penguin Spanish Phrasebook: https://www.amazon.com/dp/0141039078/

Each phrase includes pronunciation guides specific to Spain too, as well as cultural tidbits. And possibly (not certain) a bit on Catalan too, which you'll encounter a lot there.

But as roboduck said, pretty much any Spanish language book will indicate if it's more geared toward Latin America or Europe. I've taken courses both ways where I am (US), but it's worth just asking the organization.

I really like Dalbor's Spanish Pronunciation book to answer questions like this.

According to Dalbor, there are many dialectal variations of the alveolar trill and they are widespread throughout Latin America and even in Spain. Although the "proper" trill is taught in school as the standard, even educated speakers often use the variants.

So I don't think it's "lazy" or "improper". But you should be careful. What you're hearing as a simple tap is more likely to be a voiceless fricative--that's the most common variant in Chile. (Again, according to Dalbor.)

I really enjoyed this
https://www.amazon.com/Laugh-Learn-Spanish-Featuring-Better/dp/007141519X

My library had it. Check your library for stuff. I couldn't believe how much they had.

Octavio Paz - "El laberinto de la soledad" its a book you must read if you want to understand the origin of our vast culture that defined our language including the traditional slang.

https://www.amazon.com/El-laberinto-soledad-Octavio-Paz/dp/0140258833

Greetings from Mexico :D

https://www.amazon.com/Practice-Perfect-Complete-Spanish-Grammar/dp/0071763430


I'm not sure if this is what you're asking. I'm using this and currently find it very helpful. If you type in the name of the book into Google, a link from the-eye.eu pops up with the complete PDF.

Not a dictionary per se, but Spanish Vocabulary traces a lot of vocabulary thematically and it is arranged by language of origin.

https://www.amazon.com/Living-Language-Spanish-Complete/dp/0307478599/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1519742006&sr=1-1

Hay una antología que quizá le gustare: Lazos: Gramática y vocabulario a través de la literatura, por Diana Frantzen (editora).

In one of my college courses we used this:
https://www.amazon.com/Aproximaciones-al-estudio-literatura-hispánica/dp/0073385379

Este libro me ayudó mucho.