Spanish Now/ El Espanol Actual: Level 1

by Ruth J. Silverstein, Allen Pomerantz, Haywood Wald

The updated 7th edition of this combination textbook and workbook is designed as an introduction to Spanish for classroom use. The emphasis is on oral proficiency—conversational speaking and listening comprehension—but the authors also present detailed instruction in the fundamentals of Spanish grammar, vocabulary, reading comprehension, and writing in Spanish. The book is filled with exercises and answers, true-to-life dialogues, humorous cartoons, illustrations of Hispanic art, and photos that capture the flavor of Spanish culture in Spain and Latin America. In this new edition, the lessons have been enriched with subtopics to enhance conversational speech. A teacher's manual is also available.

Genres: Language, Spanish Literature, Reference, Nonfiction

534 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1975

Reviews

[Emily · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book helped me immensely with my Spanish grammar. There are a few errors in the text but easy enough to spot and work around.

[Kiri · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is the book used by my Spanish Conversation class. Each chapter tackles a different aspect of the language (usually grammar related) and begins with an engaging story. There are activities that involve you speaking aloud to describe pictures or role-play as a participant in the story, but in our class we mostly skipped those in favor of having conversations that were more tailored to our lives: what we did last weekend, what our summer plans are, etc. These always afforded good opportunities for learning new vocabulary or idioms. The book also includes more standard written exercises, and we used these as homework. Overall, I enjoyed the exercises and found them educational. But truly, nothing can teach you Conversation except actually speaking it. :)

[S R · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was leaving to go to Spanish school and so I tried to listen to one or two lessons per day on the CD's. Each unit or chapter is organized around a story that is read aloud on the CD at a normal pace and then repeated one sentence at a time slowly and the cd leaves time so that you can repeat the sentence with proper enunciation. I would look at the story in the book while listening then attempt to read each sentence without looking at the book. This exercise is followed by the narrator saying 2 sentences about the story and leaving you time to choose the correct one. It is followed by a grammatical lesson. I suppose it helped me before going to Spanish school in Mexico since everything helps. This is NOT the book I would choose if I had no vocabulary in Spanish, though. It is more of a supplemental type program. I have also discovered free Spanish lessons on line that I feel are a better way to go.

[Jan Reynolds]

Since I am once again taking Spanish classes for the next several weeks, and reading this engaging workbook(mine does not have CD's), I will probably not have much time to read until December.

[Karol K · Rating 3 out of 5]

Am now in fast paced Spanish 1. This book is the best for brushing up if you studied Spanish already or you are a newby. I did not get the CD's with my version of the book.