Rating: - Spanish Simplified
I have a growing pile of Spanish books but this has to be the best. The author has written in a way that makes you feel she is chatting to you personally, taking away that 'text book' feel. The exercises are interesting, explanations the simplest I've come across. The book makes me want to do 'just one more exercise' before putting it down.

 

Rating: - Another great one by Dorothy Richmond!
Finally some really fun exercises to improve vocabulary! What I really like about this book is that the exercises provide lots of basic structural practice--great for struggling students--as well as a wide variety of practical vocabulary for students wanting to improve conversational fluency.

 

Rating: - Excellent Study Aid for Old Man Learning Spanish
I have some audiotapes for Spanish, but wanted some written guides to help with the written language. From what I've used so far, "Spanish Vocabulary" (along with the companion "Spanish Verb Tenses" and especially the "Spanish Pronouns and Prepositions)" seems well written, comprehensive, and designed to help one learn correct Spanish.

 

Rating: - Muchas palabras y muchas historias
This book is excellent. I have gone thru it from A to Z and find virtually no faults with it. There are well over 10,000 words presented, and they are words that are commonly used in every day language. There are plenty of exercises to test your learning abilities. Also there are short stories using the words you have just learned and some you have learned in previous sections. For example, after presenting some legal terms, the author presents a discussion of the "Trial of the Century" - a discussion of the O.J. Simpson trial using some of the legal words you just learned. She discusses weights and measures, then gets into a discussion (in spanish of course) on the history and how make a Harvey Wallbanger. The book is full of many catagories of words and followed up with exercises and stories. She does not try to overwhelm you with spanish grammer, as the entire book concentrates on vocabulary and not verb tenses/grammer, and she does this by keeping the whole book in the Present Tense. Even though many of the stories happened in the past, she keeps them simple by writing them in the present, but concentrating on the words just covered. This way you concentrate on vocabluary and not so much on grammer. Over 10,000 words is a lot to learn, but she presents them is such a way that retention is enhanced. Give it a try, its a great book!!

 

Rating: - Everything by Richmond is Gold
Everything by Dorothy D.R is gold. I have all three of her books, and they are by far the best learning material for spanish that I have ever come across. These books really are fun, and I have fun doing them.
Poco a Poco.- Little by Little.

Rating: - Easy and interesting
I bought this at the same time as another Spanish learning book called "Spanish Grammar Drills" Which i found really confusing and difficult. In contrast this book is very easy to understand, it makes you think in Spanish but still explains in English. I learned some really good foundations here that i have failed to learn elsewhere. I would recommend this!

 

Rating: - Very Helpful!
I am a self-learned Spanish speaker. This book and others by the same author are invaluable!

 

Rating: - Over 400 pages of well-organized vocabulary with some grammar.
This is an amazingly hefty book. I'm an advanced student of Spanish, so most of the words were familiar to me. Even so, I'm benefiting from the book by filling in gaps in my Spanish lexicon in just about every area of concern. The back of the book says, "This book contains some adult themes." Laugh out loud, I haven't gotten to those yet! A few things were new to me and seemed strange. The author says, "Que es nuevo?" means Whats new? I learned in beginning Spanish to say, Que hay de nuevo? Also, Ms. Richmond says "Nada mucho" means nothing much. I've always said, "No mucho, nada de particular, or nada nuevo," in response to "What's new?". I doubt she's right that those are acceptable usages. I tried them out on my Spanish-speaking friends and they reacted negatively. In spite of these non-idiomatic, literal translation flaws, I'm enjoying this tour de force of a vocabulary book/workbook.

 

Rating: - great learning tool
If you are the kind of learner (and self-teacher) who LIKES homework then this whole series of books is for you. The Richmonds even throw in odd-ball humor to keep you awake. I really recommend these learning tools.

 

Rating: - Excellent choice for in class teaching lessons...
First of all, I have taken an "in class" conversational spanish course which helped to teach me the very basics of spanish, much like we learn in kintergarten and grade one english schools. It is also an essential way to learn how to pronunciate words. Without that, this book would not be helpful to somebody with zero knowledge of the language as it does not come with an audio tape. It has been a good refresher of what i have already learned. I am not all the way through this book yet but so far it has certainly been helpful in understanding all the different small words that make up a sentence structure as well as understanding dipthongs (the little accents over letters) and all the small things that tend to get overlooked in a fast track "in class" learning method.
All of which are incredibly important if you REALLY want to understand the structure of the language, learn properly and converse fluenlty. This is a great book at a great price, which just goes top prove that you don't always have to dish out tons of cash to get something that works well! Buena suerte!! :):):)

Rating: - Excellent Resource
After taking a basic course, I found this to be an excellent review. The author has written several "Practice Makes Perfect" books, all of which I find to be excellent.

 

Rating: - Practice Makes Perfect
This is a good workbook with lots of vocabulary and a sense of humor. I also recommend the others in the Practice Makes Perfect series.

 

Rating: - A GREAT book for a beginner
I've just done a Spanish night class and am a complete beginner. This book has helped me understand everything taught in the class so much better. It introduces each topic and teaches you it as well, if not better, than you will learn in a class.
The best bit is that there are HEAPS of activities, they are incredibly helpful. There are also word lists so you don't have to know heaps before you can get stuck in. I did the first 50 pages in a couple of days - it was FUN. The exercises aren't boring either, they are quite funny to translate sometimes and they are varied eg, is something true or false for you, translating sentences and paragraphs and did you know, who is this sort of questions.
A GREAT book for a beginner, I feel so much more confident in my class now. I would suggest this book far over the other 3 in the series for a beginner - the others you need to know more before you start.
BEST Spanish book I have seen, and I own heaps!

 

Rating: - Handy to have
This product is great for use in expanding the learner's vocabulary. I am a non native speaker of Spanish taking courses in college to become a Spanish teacher. This book, as well as the other in the series, are simple easy to use, and even interesting. I use this book in my classrooms to supplement the text and to give extra help in the present tense. I only gave it four stars because this book assumes that the learner has some knowledge of the Spanish language. While this book is great for the late beginner and intermediate learners true beginners will have a harder time with this book.

 

Rating: - great for advanced learner
has many more words and vocabulary generalized groups than any other vocabulary book i have ever seen in spanish grammar. could save lots of time in looking for the same phrases in the dictionary

Rating: - Practice Makes Perfect: Spanish Vocabulary
The Practice Makes Perfect series of language books is extremely well thought out and invites the student to quickly learn the concepts as well as the grammar of Spanish.

 

Rating: - Lifelong Learner in TN
As an adult learner, I really enjoy the "Practice Makes Perfect" series because is helpful not only for beginners to increase their language skills, but I frequently return to these books as a refresher text. I cannot agree with the reviewer who says that this book is a rush job, I've seen those books and they are lists of words without any meaningful context. Richmond has given significant attention to ser & estar and para & por that are especially helpful. She has a good sense of humor, and I enjoy finding the little jewels in her work, this volume even includes a recipe for a Harvey Wallbanger as well as its history.

 

Rating: - FUN, easy to use and it DOES expand your vocabulary!
Speaking as somebody who is teaching themselves Spanish, I'd have to say that this book does what it claims and DOES IT WELL! USEFUL, ENTERTAINING, EASY TO USE and YOU LEARN VOCABULARY. Better than a dictionary and a whole LOT MORE FUN!

I also own the PRACTICE MAKES PERFECT VERBS, the PRONOUNS & PREPOSITIONS volume AND the COMPLETE SPANISH GRAMMER books in the series. Personally, I think this book is an excellant companion book and fits in well with the series. True, it doesn't have the LONG translation excercises, but it does contain LONG reading segments in Spanish which is, in my opinion, the best way to learn VOCABULARY! Believe me, YOU LEARN VOCABULARY when you read this book. I know today's "educators" frown upon rote learning and "memorizing", but, quite frankly, if you don't memorize anything, how much can you really know??? The reading excercises make your brain work on recalling the words from MEMORY. Sure, there's not a lot of long excercises which require you to write, but there ARE LOTS OF PRACTICE EXCERCISES.

I found the book to be FUN and ENJOYABLE. I'm learning a LOT and it's FUN, too! Unlike the Verb book, you can skip around from unit to unit. Read a unit while you're eating lunch or riding on the bus. Short sentence and phrase translations, fill-in-the-word, and true and false excercises mean you can do many of the exercises IN YOUR HEAD without the need for pencil and paper. Subject grouped word lists followed by reading excercises, short translations and T/F quizes makes your brain retain the words. And to achieve even a conversational level in any language, who would disagree that one must fill their memory with words??? You can read, study and use this book anywhere and anytime you have five free minutes. It WORKS, so I'm not sure I understand why it's not receiving better reviews.

It shouldn't be the FIRST book you buy in this series, though. I'd recommend getting VERBS first, PREPS & PRONOUNS second, GRAMMER third and this book AFTER you've used the others, as this book presupposes that you already have a basic grasp of how to conjugate verbs and construct a sentence. It DOES REVIEW verbs in general, ser/estar, reflexive verbs, por/para, pronouns, adverbs, adjectives, and grammer--all the while introducting new words and how different, but related, words are formed through the use of suffixes and prefixes.

Not only will you learn vocabulary, but you might just find a few surprising tid-bits of knowledge about history, historic and contempory people, current events, religion, science and more!!!!

All in all, I'm VERY PLEASED with this book, and I give it FIVE STARS. It's USEFUL, FUN, and EXPANDS YOUR VOCABULARY--exactly what the publisher claims. It's also INEXPENSIVE and actually has 388 PAGES of text and exercises, 436 pages total (including the answer keys). For the price, you can't go wrong!

 

Rating: - Not enough practice
I've just got this book and it is a good compilation of wordlists and some grammar rules but the main reason why I bought it is "Practice Makes Perfect" and this book doesn't belong to this series. I have "Verbs" and "Pronouns and prepositions" from this series and both of them have a lot of exercises and this one doesn't - just a few simple ones per each chapter. Like a regular grammar book and I have quite a few already.
This book has a lot of very useful material and if you are not looking for extensive language building exercises you will find this book useful, otherwise - look elsewhere.

 

Rating: - Big disappointment -a bit better than the non practice makes perfect
I'm a teacher. Most language learning books are a disaster. They throw lots of rules, vocabulary at you and give you maybe, if your lucky, 10 questions about 50 items. Once. They take on way way too much and give far too little practice. The result: most people start a book, a course and then figure they are bad at learning languages when really the instruction is abysmal. This book falls into money pit category.

The practice makes perfect series is better than most, slower paced, translations that have meaning. This book, however, is pretty much like the usual published books, bad. Lists and lists of words, some questions, and a focus on grammar. If this works for you, open a dictionary and read words.

I have the other books in this series, verbs is good, followed by pronouns and prepositions and, well, the others - missable. Far fewer words, selected for their frequency, used in multiple ways and rotated in and out of the exercies so one returns to the vocabulary over and over again should have been the way to go. This reeks of a rush job. Hope future editions, if there are any, revamp the whole thing.

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