Books for Learning Spanish..
Over the years I have collected many books about learning Spanish as a second language. All were good in certain aspects because you continually have to move the goal to break through different levels, but the ones I list here are my favorites.
And I include a bonus idea at the end with a book and movie pairing.
This is my first go to book series for many languages when traveling. It includes a nice breakdown of chapters by common events a tourist might run into. It also includes audio files for each chapter.
A word of caution on this book series, this is the Castilian Spanish series. If you are studying and traveling in Mexico, Central, and or South America I would recommend the sister series:
Colloquial Spanish of Latin America
2.Victor’s Adventures in Spain
I like this author and the style of this book. It is a parallel text in English and Spanish in two columns. A student can quickly reference and highlight new vocabulary, and study the context right away.
This is a husband and wife team look for their other great titles under their author pages at Amazon:
Mr Gordon D Smith Duran and Mrs Cynthia Smith Duran
3.
Gramatica inglesa para hispanohablantes
This book by Cambridge University Press is probably not on anyone’s short list to study Spanish, but it is one of my favorites. This book is written for native Spanish speakers as a guide for English grammar. I like it because it forces me out of my comfort zone and it does have parallel or comparative dialogues. I use this book with English learning students and it helps me understand the concepts as a Spanish learning student.
PS… This book is a great ice breaker when working with a timid student of English.
Bonus Idea!…
I collect foreign language films on Netflix and one of my favorites is:
El Tiempo Entre Costuras
The book, Spanish version, is available at Amazon.
I like to pair a book with the movie version and do what I call “Real Time Training”.
“Real Time Training” is read aloud
And repeat and repeat and repeat.
For other resources and information about studying Spanish as a student or teaching English as a foreign language check out my other posts.