This updated edition of the 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, illustrations of Hispanic art, and photos that capture the flavor of Spanish culture in Spain and Latin America. In this new edition, the vocabulary sections and readings have been updated to include the latest technology, while the cultural sections now include information about the Hispanic individuals currently making a splash on the world scene.
You don’t need words to speak Spanish. All you really need is this unique "phrase book" of the most common Spanish expressions, complete with authentic Spanish gestures and body language. It's the fastest and funniest way to learn Spanish ever published. You don’t need words to speak Spanish. You don't have to study Spanish, or travel to Spain or Latin America to communicate in Spanish, either. All you really need is this unique "phrase book" of the most common Spanish expressions, complete with authentic Spanish gestures and body language. It's the fastest and funniest way to learn Spanish ever published. Now, even if you don't know a single word of Spanish, you can learn the most common greetings and expressions, dinner-table comments, hot vows of love, bargaining tricks, insults, threats and curses. This book shows you how. There's no faster or funnier way to learn how to communicate in Spain or Latin America, in Spanish, Mexican, Puerto Rican or Argentinian restaurants, with your grandparents or your friends.
This is a children's sound board book, containing 6 children's songs sung in Spanish. All content in the book is original, including the illustrations, texts (in Spanish and English), translations and all 6 originally-produced songs.
This book focuses on contemporary sociolinguistic approaches to Spanish dialectology. Each of the authors draws on key issues of contemporary sociolinguistics, combining theoretical approaches with empirical data collection. Overall, these chapters address topics concerning language variation and change, sound production and perception, contact linguistics, language teaching, language policy, and ideologies. The authors urge us, as linguists, to take a stand on important issues and to continue applying theory to praxis so as to advance the frontiers of research in the field. This edited volume in honor of Professor Terrell A. Morgan is a means of celebrating an amazing friend, advisor, and human being, who has dedicated his career to teaching graduate and undergraduate students, performed key research in the field, and helped to further pedagogy in the classroom through his textbooks, seminars and websites.
¿Por qué? 101 Questions about Spanish is for anyone who wants to understand how Spanish really works. Standard textbooks and grammars describe the "what" of Spanish - its vocabulary, grammar, spelling, and pronunciation - but ¿Por qué? explains the "why". Judy Hochberg draws on linguistic principles, Hispanic culture, and language history to answer questions such as: Why are so many Spanish verbs irregular? - Why does Spanish have different ways to say "you"? - Why is h silent? - Why doesn't Spanish use apostrophes? - Why does Castilian Spanish have the th sound? Packed with information, guidance, and links to further research, ¿Por qué? is an accessible study guide that is suitable for Spanish students, instructors, native speakers, and the general reader. It is a valuable supplementary text for serious students of Spanish at all levels, from beginning to advanced. ¿Por qué? also covers topics usually left to specialized books, including the evolution of Spanish, how children and adults learn Spanish, and the status of languages that co-exist with Spanish, from Catalan to Spanish sign language to the indigenous languages of Latin America.
Nobody Knows the Spanish I Speak is a humorous memoir about dropping out late in life, selling almost everything, and moving to the middle of Mexico, where you don't know a soul and can barely speak the language. The story arc of the memoir is a simple one: the author and his wife lose their jobs, drop out, and move to Mexico (Act 1); they experience conflict, both good and bad, before moving back to the United States (end of Act 2); finally, they resolve their biggest conflict by moving back to Mexico (Conclusion), where they hoped to stay longer this time. The author and his wife were the last persons they ever thought would drop out and move to Mexico, especially when they did. They were in their late 50s at the time, did not have much money to fund the move, and were not the adventurous types. They were both working in high-tech, for different companies, and coincidentally their jobs were going away around the same time. They felt boxed in-or out. So, they sold their condo in downtown Portland, Oregon, with the spectacular view of Mt. Hood and Mt. St. Helens and lived in Mexico for two years off the proceeds of the sale. Put another way, they gave themselves a self-funded, open-ended sabbatical. Funny things happened to the couple almost immediately. The author started writing about what was going on, from the point of view of someone who was totally ill-equipped and ill-prepared to live in a foreign country. In violation of such mainstream media expectations, in moving to Mexico they didn't get car-jacked, kidnapped, mistakenly shot at, or ripped off by a shady contractor hoping to live in Panama on their life savings. They had, however, many mishaps, made some dreadful mistakes, got in and out of trouble, and learned a thing or two about life, Mexico, and each other. Even though the memoir reenacts no homicides or rescue attempts, their story covers plenty of interesting ground, landscaped with prickly pear cactus, scorpions, mammoth speed bumps, lung-choking dust, yoga, disco, firecrackers, car repairs, lost-in-translation moments, and a near-death collision on a two-lane highway. All right, that last bit is an exaggeration. The two six-wheelers missed them by a good five inches. The couple discovered they were living in a cash-based society where nobody ever had change. In a culture where mañana did not always mean tomorrow but could mean anything from later to not now to fat chance you'll ever see me again. In a country where the most common unit of measurement was not the kilo or the kilometer, as guidebooks would have you believe, but something known as más o menos, simply translated as "more or less." Nobody Knows the Spanish I Speak is a true story about second chances and personal reinventions; speed bumps and slippery streets; comfortable casitas and friendly tiendas. It's about the sound of fire crackers going off at three in the morning, and as much about broken-down cars as it is about clear-blue skies as it is about eating corn fungus. The author and his wife took the advice of Henry James and lived "the life we had always imagined." More precisely, they lived a life they had never imagined.
