Nov 15, 2015Tony_Jeffers rated this title 4 out of 5 stars
This book is of very limited use for someone that wants to study and learn to read and write Spanish. What it is good for is the person that has Spanish speaking friends already. You can get some great ideas of how to improve your communication with them in Spanish. The best way to learn a language is to have to use it. If you know Spanish speaking people and hear them speaking a lot of Spanish with each other and kind of feel left out then this book might be a great help for you to join in.
As Harvey makes clear in his introduction it is completely inadequate for preparing to live long term in a Spanish speaking country.
I am very leery of his idea to prepare a list of questions in Spanish on a clip board and stop strangers that look like Spanish speakers on the street and ask them if they would mind answering some questions for your Spanish program survey. He says they will be happy to help. But generally people walking down the street are busy and going somewhere not hoping to encounter a survey taker. I feel very skeptical that Harvey ever did this himself especially on U.S. soil.
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Spanish for Gringos. Level 1