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Gritty Spanish Beginnings: 32 Spanish Conversational Situations for High Beginners to Intermediate Learners. Master Over 15,000 Words in Context!
Gritty Spanish Beginnings comes after the popular intermediate -advanced listening and reading Spanish language cult classics, Gritty Spanish Original (2014) and Gritty Parte II (2016). In this version of Gritty Spanish, the stories are a lot shorter and easier to read and understand than the previous offerings, but it's still has that signature GRIT we all love about Gritty Spanish, but without the foul language. It’s perfect for Beginner – Intermediate Spanish language learners who are interested in improving their Spanish reading comprehension in a fun and unique way through story telling. In this book, you'll read 32 short, engaging and extremely entertaining stories that will hook you! It will become a big part in helping finally break out of basic level Spanish. You'll read each of the 32 stores in both Spanish & English! This book is professionally formatted, excellent usage of colors, and spacing, making it an extremely easy read. Detailed explanations on Grammar in each story! ================================= Gritty Spanish Beginnings contains a plethora of explanations of most of the verbs used in each story. There is a lot more, "hand holding" in this version than the previous versions of Gritty Spanish. There is a section at the end of every story, called, "Breaking it all down" you'll find very helpful. You don't even need to finish the story to read certain parts of that section, that's because in each story, there are links of certain verbs and other Grammar notes which takes you straight to that area. So you click, read read a little about it, and when you click again, it takes you right back to that same point in the story! It's like having your own dictionary within the book itself, so you don't need to stop, and look up verbs and how they are used, etc. This is a very cool feature!!! You’ll learn hundreds of verbs in Gritty Spanish Beginnings and how they are used in context! You'll increase your vocabulary thanks to the excellent side by side translations. You'll this awesome book. It will definitely keep you busy and very entertained for a while and your Spanish reading comprehension will improve greatly as a result! Audio Package on GrittySpanish.com =============================== Just like the previous versions of Gritty Spanish, all the stories are dramatically voice acted by native Spanish speakers. After reading the stories, you should definitely consider purchasing the audio from the official website, www.grittyspanish.com, it’s absolutely amazing and hearing the stories with the sound effects, music and the passion in each character's voice has always been a staple of Gritty Spanish. see the end of the book for all the details! Enjoy and thanks for giving it a shot!
426 pages, Kindle Edition
Published May 31, 2017
426 people are currently reading
72 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
April 30, 2018
‘If you want to give someone a direct command and say, “Wait for me”, then you say, “Espérame”’.
Author/language coach Eldon Mirjah was born in the West Indian Island of Grenada, known as the Isle of Spice, and migrated to Harlem in NYC in 1989 at age 10. At age 30, he visited a Spanish speaking country, Dominican Republic for the first time and encountered problems with the Spanish language. This experience spearheaded his concept and program of Gritty Spanish - reading/listening to extremely entertaining and engaging urban Spanish stories as a means of learning Spanish.
Eldon has written 32 short, engaging and extremely entertaining stories. reading the stories will become a big part in helping finally break out of basic level Spanish. As he states n his introduction, ‘You'll read each of the 32 stores in both Spanish & English! This book is professionally formatted, excellent usage of colors, and spacing, making it an extremely easy read.’ And there are detailed explanations on grammar in each story.
An example is Episode 2: I Am So Sick – ‘Synopsis: Julisa doesn’t get sick very often, but when she does, it’s pretty bad and she absolutely hates it. Today she got up coughing and sneezing. Luckily, she has a very caring and concerned boyfriend by her side who is more than happy to play nurse.’ (insert a few instructions on grammar) and then the Spanish version: ‘Julisa: ¡Oh Dios mío! Estoy muy enferma hoy, Miguel. No quiero ir a trabajar. Tengo una fiebre horrible. Julisa: Oh my god! I am so sick today, Miguel. I don't want to go to work. I have a horrible fever. Miguel: Aww ¿qué pasa con mi nena hoy?, ¿qué está mal? Dime… Miguel: Aww what's wrong with my baby today, what’s wrong? Talk to me.’
And so the book procedes – story, lessons, practice - learning! This is a fun book to read and a very comfortable way to learn conversational Spanish – or reverse the order and learn English!
Author/language coach Eldon Mirjah was born in the West Indian Island of Grenada, known as the Isle of Spice, and migrated to Harlem in NYC in 1989 at age 10. At age 30, he visited a Spanish speaking country, Dominican Republic for the first time and encountered problems with the Spanish language. This experience spearheaded his concept and program of Gritty Spanish - reading/listening to extremely entertaining and engaging urban Spanish stories as a means of learning Spanish.
Eldon has written 32 short, engaging and extremely entertaining stories. reading the stories will become a big part in helping finally break out of basic level Spanish. As he states n his introduction, ‘You'll read each of the 32 stores in both Spanish & English! This book is professionally formatted, excellent usage of colors, and spacing, making it an extremely easy read.’ And there are detailed explanations on grammar in each story.
An example is Episode 2: I Am So Sick – ‘Synopsis: Julisa doesn’t get sick very often, but when she does, it’s pretty bad and she absolutely hates it. Today she got up coughing and sneezing. Luckily, she has a very caring and concerned boyfriend by her side who is more than happy to play nurse.’ (insert a few instructions on grammar) and then the Spanish version: ‘Julisa: ¡Oh Dios mío! Estoy muy enferma hoy, Miguel. No quiero ir a trabajar. Tengo una fiebre horrible. Julisa: Oh my god! I am so sick today, Miguel. I don't want to go to work. I have a horrible fever. Miguel: Aww ¿qué pasa con mi nena hoy?, ¿qué está mal? Dime… Miguel: Aww what's wrong with my baby today, what’s wrong? Talk to me.’
And so the book procedes – story, lessons, practice - learning! This is a fun book to read and a very comfortable way to learn conversational Spanish – or reverse the order and learn English!
May 3, 2018
Reading comprehension!
A Spanish book for beginners to intermediate readers. The idea is helping learn to read Spanish with the help of short stories is good, with the goal to improve reading comprehension. It’s colorful, short and easy to read, in multiple sittings or read over and again. Again, there are many books in the market, and readers have another good choice here.
A Spanish book for beginners to intermediate readers. The idea is helping learn to read Spanish with the help of short stories is good, with the goal to improve reading comprehension. It’s colorful, short and easy to read, in multiple sittings or read over and again. Again, there are many books in the market, and readers have another good choice here.
December 12, 2018
I read through this to see if I could recommend to my students. It is decent and seems to be grammatically correct, which isn't always the case. The stories are very short and offer good explanations and follow up. Could easily be implemented into a Spanish classroom (especially for college).
October 12, 2019
Colorfully Contextually Culture
This program helps me remember because the words are learned through context and dialectical culture and later taught with a colorful format that makes it easier to remember.
This program helps me remember because the words are learned through context and dialectical culture and later taught with a colorful format that makes it easier to remember.
December 21, 2024
nice practice
As a person that is trying to learn Spanish I found to book to be an engaging resource. It helped me with grammar and with reading comprehension. I will be getting other books in this series.
As a person that is trying to learn Spanish I found to book to be an engaging resource. It helped me with grammar and with reading comprehension. I will be getting other books in this series.
May 16, 2023
Realistic dialog
They do a great job making the conversation realistic. And even better job of explaining phrases and verb tenses. Very helpful in leaning Español.
They do a great job making the conversation realistic. And even better job of explaining phrases and verb tenses. Very helpful in leaning Español.
March 31, 2024
The book performs its function reasonably well. I disliked the chopped up format, but another reader might find the frequent translation breaks helpful. My primary complaint is that the "gritty" stories were just terribly boring.
June 4, 2020
I received this as a gift from my sister – thanks Sis!
This is an excellent book of Spanish instruction through storytelling. No other book that I’ve read compares to it except Madrigal’s Magic Key to Spanish. The format of the book is such that 32 short stories are told in both Spanish and English. Storytelling is a great way to learn. Jesus’ utilization of parables throughout His ministry have endured for millennia and have not lost any of their impact. What sets Gritty Spanish apart from Spanish storyteller Paco Ardit are the English parallels and the links that Gritty uses to instruct the reader of grammar guidelines. Mirjah also explains the rationale behind Spanish idioms for those cases where word-for-word translation doesn’t quite work. These linked endnotes are the real power of Gritty Spanish. His explanations are clear and he uses repetition very well to drill home these principles of Spanish syntax. One minor knock is that, in some instances, he overuses the same verbs as examples.
The stories are mildly entertaining. “Gritty” is a good description of some of them. One of them was particularly creepy! Some of them are humorous as well. These vignettes are a good mix of dialogue genres in which we will participate as our Spanish improves.
This book may take longer to finish than you think. To take full advantage of Mirjah's instruction, I followed the links as I read the stories and read through them again after I finished the stories. As a result of this method it takes about 1.5 times longer to finish each story than if you just read these straight through.
This book was well suited for my level of Spanish. I may consider his audio offerings.
This is an excellent book of Spanish instruction through storytelling. No other book that I’ve read compares to it except Madrigal’s Magic Key to Spanish. The format of the book is such that 32 short stories are told in both Spanish and English. Storytelling is a great way to learn. Jesus’ utilization of parables throughout His ministry have endured for millennia and have not lost any of their impact. What sets Gritty Spanish apart from Spanish storyteller Paco Ardit are the English parallels and the links that Gritty uses to instruct the reader of grammar guidelines. Mirjah also explains the rationale behind Spanish idioms for those cases where word-for-word translation doesn’t quite work. These linked endnotes are the real power of Gritty Spanish. His explanations are clear and he uses repetition very well to drill home these principles of Spanish syntax. One minor knock is that, in some instances, he overuses the same verbs as examples.
The stories are mildly entertaining. “Gritty” is a good description of some of them. One of them was particularly creepy! Some of them are humorous as well. These vignettes are a good mix of dialogue genres in which we will participate as our Spanish improves.
This book may take longer to finish than you think. To take full advantage of Mirjah's instruction, I followed the links as I read the stories and read through them again after I finished the stories. As a result of this method it takes about 1.5 times longer to finish each story than if you just read these straight through.
This book was well suited for my level of Spanish. I may consider his audio offerings.
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews