Getting Started With Spanish

Subtitled "Beginning Spanish for Homeschoolers and Self-Taught Students of Any Age," this book serves as a great introduction for the family who wants to "try out" the language before investing in a full-fledged Spanish course. This book contains 177 short lessons (usually a page in length), which are straightforward and incremental in progression. Lessons strike a balance between introducing new vocabulary, explaining simple grammatical concepts, and memorization of noun and verb forms. Lessons are self-paced, self-explanatory, and offer plenty of practice exercises. Lessons that introduce new Spanish vocabulary feature a new Spanish word, its English translation, and often a pronunciation tip, followed by about ten sentences to translate. Grammar lessons introduce concepts and verb forms gradually; as verb forms are introduced, they are added to a chart, which students use to aid in translating sentences. For pronunciation help, the author provides free, downloadable MP3 audio files on his website, which can be used with the lessons. Because this book is a non-reproducible worktext (not a workbook), it can be used with multiple students. (The author recommends writing the translating exercises in a separate notebook.). Overall, this course teaches students about 100 vocabulary words, gives them a grasp of basic Spanish grammar, and makes them comfortable translating simple Spanish sentences. After completing this program, students will be ready to tackle a "regular" Spanish program with confidence and they will be off to a good head start! ~ Lisa