Essential Spanish Grammar: All The Grammar Really Needed For Speech And Comprehension (Dover Language Guides Essential Grammar)

I must say this book is doing a pretty good job explaining basic rules to a beginner. It could be considered a quick reference. I even created a condensed cheat sheet from it, to make it easier to memorize. The author doesn't explain why certain constructs are what they are, which may make them hard to understand for a native English speaker. I am a native Russian and we have a lot of very similar constructs so if i just remind myself that, it makes a lot more sense. Indoeuropean roots i guess. As far as "tu" conjugations, they are indeed missing. Actually, they mostly look like plural of "usted" conjugations, which is the opposite of russian - in russian, formal "you" is plural. Just get another book for that and other details.

I used this book 40 years ago in college, and I still have it. I'm now re-learning Spanish along with my wife, so I bought a copy for her. It is a remarkably concise summary of Spanish grammar essentials, teaching just enough practical grammar for the reader to be able to converse. The explanation and examples are good. Brevity and clarity are the book's main strengths. The author made good decisions about what to cover and what not to cover. The actual Spanish grammar portion of the book is only about 60 pages. Most of the rest of the book is in two appendices: a 32-page list of cognates and a ten-page glossary of grammatical terms. I think these were added mostly to make the book long enough to sell. But I don't hold that against the author/publisher, because the core 60 pages are excellent.

I like this book overall, BUT, it has one really serious flaw. On page 28, in paragraph 8, the author says "A familiar singular form tu is used to address close friends, relatives, children, and animals"..... He says also "You will probablyu have no opportunity to use these forms, and should avoid them; we mention them only so that will recognize them if you hear them". This is VERY bad advice and frankly, in most of the grammar sections, the author completely leaves out the verb forms related to "Tu". I have traveled extensively in South and Central America and Spain and speak decent Spanish. MOST people I speak with in Spanish utilize the familiar very quickly. Other than in Spain, I rarely use Usted except in very polite or formal situations. I think the author does the reader and student of Spanish a serious disservice by not including this form right along with all the other forms and conjugations. I used another book from this series to study Portuguese. Wonderful book that was REALLY helpful. I had hoped this book would be similar and, for the most part, it is helpful. It's worth buying as the summaries are relatively short with good explanations and examples - a quick, "down and dirty" reference, which is exactly what I want. I simply cannot get past the complete disregard and exclusion of the familiar form (Tu). That is a serious error, in my opinion.

Informative. Nearly half the book covers verbs and conjugation, which makes sense since most the story is in the verbs.

An excellent and handy synopsis of Spanish grammar, written by an author who is obviously at home in English and Spanish--and not like so many other grammars authored by individuals who are not perfectly bilingual and introduce errors of spelling and translation inaccuracies. In addition to tables of verb conjugations, there are useful tables of other parts of speech, useful expressions for learners, vocabulary tips, plus a glossary of grammatical terms. The author has also published a companion book, "1001 Most Useful Spanish Words" in which the vocabulary is used in sentences.

Very good learning tool

This book is a pretty good review of the essentials of Spanish grammar, valuable as a quick review. However, it's showing its age (first copyright 1959). The informal tú and vosotros second person forms are largely ignored, in verb conjugation and in pronouns, on the claim that these forms are not used except between family and close friends. Definitely not true today, especially in Latin America. Lots of stuff about the subjunctive, which again is less used than in the past. The list of cognates is useful. On the whole, though, the book is badly in need of updating to describe contemporary Spanish.

this is the way to learn spanish. I have done Pimsler and Rosetta stone and although you learn words and phrases much much quicker with those methods, you'll learn the language better and with a much more thouroughly by using this graded reader method adn using this book to augment that learning. It focuses on understanding vs speaking. Think of a baby he/she hears thousands of words before they ever speak, when they do it is not a matter of knowing the word for them it is still how to make the sounds but the knolwedge is now there. I think althiough this method is slower at first to learn to speak after a few months the rate of learning greatly increase and the speed of the learning triples each lesson so that ultimatly after 6 months comapring allthree methods I will know more words and understand how to have an actual conversation much much better than a memorazation leaning based cirriculam could offer. try it have patients and you'll find this is the best path to long termmemory and command fo the spanish language

I bought it for a friend so that he could improve his Spanish, I have looked at the book several times when visiting and found the contents very informative.

just okay nothing special.