It’s another one of my favorites that has gotten a lot of use over the years. Much of the slang and informal Spanish focuses on the Spanish of Spain, but a lot of it is universal and if not, the author suggests Latin American alternatives. The Spanish Among Amigos Phrasebook has 12 realistic conversational dialogues and thoroughly covers the language structures, verbs, informal speech, slang, cultural insights and grammar. I glanced through it and immediately knew I had to add it to my collection. I just happened to come across in it a Borders bookstore (anybody remember those?). If memory serves me correctly, this is the first book on conversational Spanish I ever purchased. I love this book and have definitely gotten my return on investment multiple times over.
I could go on for quite a while about the contents of this book, but I’m going to wrap this up by saying that this book will help you avoid common mistakes by English speakers, help you learn how to think in Spanish and sound less like a gringo by teaching you real world Spanish. Here’s a snapshot of the paragraph on the Spanish verb llevar. He explains the usage of these 64 verbs beyond the basic definitions you learn in class or your typical grammar book. Here’s a partial listing of the verbs he covers: caer, andar, conocer, dar, dejar, echar, hacer, haber, llevar and ir. Next let’s take a quick look at Chapter 7, Sixty-four Verbs, Up Close and Personal.Īs the title of the chapter implies, he looks at 64 high frequency Spanish verbs. This is good example of where he points out nuances and culture in the use of the language that makes this book the tremendous resource that it is. The first one is a list of common greetings and the second explains who it’s appropriate to use each greeting with.
This section addresses a lot of the nuances of greeting people in Spanish, putting it all in context and providing much needed insight into the language that is missing from the class room.
Keenan) lists numerous greetings in Spanish beyond the typical “ cómo estás” that you’re taught in the class room. Let’s start with the section on Meetings and Greetings that you’ll find in Chapter 2, Mind Your Verbal Manners. Let me point out a few areas of the book so you can get an idea of how it will help you improve your Spanish. It’s not very often you find all three of those qualities in a language learning book. It’s easy to read, entertaining and informative. It’s one of the few learning Spanish books that I have honestly read from cover to cover and consistently use as a reference. If I could only recommend one book to improve your conversational Spanish, it would be this one.īreaking out of Beginner Spanish is indispensable, a must have for anyone who wants to be able to not only speak Spanish, but to do so as naturally as any native Spanish speaker. Lets discuss them one by one, in no particular order. Here’s a list of the books, all of which are available on Amazon. In this post I’m going to share with you 3 books that will help you make dramatic improvements to your conversational Spanish skills. Without a good book you’ll spend years trying to identify and decipher these phrases on your own. After all, it’s impossible to get better at conversation without actually conversing.īut that approach can be difficult, stressful and take a long time for you to make significant gains in your conversational Spanish skills.Īnother practical, effective and more efficient approach to improving your conversational Spanish is by finding the right conversational Spanish books to supplement and help speed up the process.Ī good book on conversational Spanish will help you learn the most common vocabulary, expressions, idioms and language structures used by “común y corriente” (ordinary, average) Spanish speakers. Part of that answer is simply having conversations with as many Spanish speakers as possible, discussing a variety of topics and asking a lot questions. As a self-taught Spanish speaker, organizer of a Spanish conversation group and a conversational Spanish language coach, I get a lot questions from people asking for my advice on how to improve their conversational Spanish.