Spanish For Dummies- How To Learn Spanish Quickly
from author
Spanish For Dummies is one of the books in the successful “For Dummies…” series. It quite naturally focuses on the Spanish language and sets out to help you learn Spanish quick in an easy and entertaining manner.
Spanish For Dummies is written by those who know the language best at the Berlitz language school. The book features common expressions and phrases that you may find helpful while you are on vacation, and aims to get you up and running with the language.
The Spanish For Dummies book describes itself as being, “…the ultimate guide for speaking Spanish quick and easy.” The book is accompanied by a CD-ROM, which allows you to hear Spanish spoken by native speakers.
In some way, you could describe any starter Spanish learning course as being Spanish for dummies , in a general sense that is. The idea is that it can take a beginner who has no knowledge of Spanish, from knowing nothing at all to at least speaking a couple of common phrases in Spanish.
There are a fair number of courses like that in the market nowadays. Nowadays, language courses have started concentrating on the fun element of learning a language, paying less attention to the need for grammar, syntax and cultural nuance, and replacing it with shortcuts, tricks and tips to actually speaking the language with other native speakers.
Grammar does have its place. Spanish grammar is quite different from English grammar. That’s why they will describe a new car as “un coche nuevo,” literally, “a car new.” There is not a lot you can do about the difference other than just learning it.
Translating literally from English to Spanish is a very bad idea. That would come out as, in our example, “un nuevo coche,” and would sound just as bad to a Spanish person as “a car new” sounds to you! As a rough guideline, put the adjective, the describing word, after the noun, the thing being described. This is the reverse of the normal rules in English.
The Spanish for dummies type of courses tend rather to focus on the easier side of things. There are a large number of Spanish words, for instance, that are very similar to their English counterparts. Mostly, they change only with the suffixs. Words in English ending in “ant” often become words ending in “ante” in Spanish. Por ejemple (that’s Spanish and I’ll bet you can guess what it is in English), “important” becomes “importante.”
But that’s not all…
Many of the “ent” ending English words become “ente” in Spanish, such as “evidente.” A good number of the “ible” and “able” ending words stay the same in both languages: comparable, combustible. Some Spanish words merely drop English endings, such as the “ate” ending words where “participate” becomes “participa” and “terminate” becomes “termina.”
How many English words can you think of that suffix in “ary”? There are tons and you’ve just learned as whole lot more Spanish words, because you can adapt the English to Spanish by changing the “ary” ending to an “ario” ending.
Spanish for dummies can be the title of a best selling language book, or it can simply be a way of describing a good Spanish course designed to help you learn Spanish fast without the hassle of learning complex Spanish grammar.