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20,000 Words in Spanish, in 20 Minutes!
by Charles Mazal-Cami
Product Group: Book
Publisher: Palabra Press (1991-10)
ISBN: 0963057235
EAN: 9780963057235
Dewy Decimal #: 468.2421
Paperback: 198 pages
Edition: 2nd
SKU: 05054
Condition: Used: Very Good
Comments: Pages clean, some edge wear and scuffs.
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Customer Reviews
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Great for learning to read Spanish
Rating  (4)
Date: 2006-05-31
I have spent a good deal of time in Chile, Mexico and Spain as a technical advisor. This book catapulted my reading ability. I have 1 year of recent college Spanish in addition to independent study. It is not the best book for beginners but again my reading comprehension greatly improved after introduction to the cognate theory. While the average Mexican on the street may not comand Spanish any better than John Doe does English here, in a middle to higher level conversation, a cognate is worth a 1000 gestures.
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Only somewhat useful for dealing with Latin Americans
Rating (4)
Date: 2005-12-29
1 out of 2 customers found this reveiw helpful
I lived in Mexico for 1 year and taught English there. I have also traveled to Spain, and spent a year and a half learning Spanish at the college level.
Latin Americans do not speak the same language that is taught in American colleges, namely Castillian Spanish, which is similar to British English. In fact, Latin Americans speak such distinctly different dialects that they sometimes have a hard time understanding each other - i.e. Cuban Spanish vs. Puerto Rican. I had a difficult time making myself understood and understanding people in Mexico City, however, Madrid was a piece of cake. These differences need to be kept in mind.
This book emphasizes cognates, which are a good way to get acquainted with a romance language, since so many of the words are similar in English; however, most Mexican and other Latino immigrants, some of whom cannot read their own language, most of whom do not have a lengthy education will not likely understand a lot of the words used in this book. They may nod "yes" to anything you say just to get it over with and get back to work.
Overall, it's a good intro to cognates, which are also transferable to French. However, don't expect that your communication skills with Latinos will get any better. If I wanted to communicate better with Mexicans (speaking mainly of tougher, younger male workers) I would take the advice of Carl Franz (People's Guide to Mexico) and learn some good old fashioned "whorehouse" Spanish instead.
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Great for beginners
Rating  (3)
Date: 2001-05-21
This book would be great for beginners. It provides an easy way to add to your vocabulary and introduces some basic concepts of the language (without expressly saying so).For anyone with a good start on the language though, it's not a good investment. I bought it hoping to add to my vocabulary, but I already knew the concepts, and it only uses cognates that I would have probably figured out on my own. As a matter of fact, I don't think I ever used this book once I received it and looked it over.
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20,000 Words in Spanish in 20 Minutes
Rating  (5)
Date: 2001-04-19
4 out of 4 customers found this reveiw helpful
I found this book very helpful in the sense that there are numerous words in English that are pretty much identical in Spanish. This book gives you those words and makes you think while interpreting (like I do and have for 6 yrs.) on how it should be said. You don't use every word everyday, so its nice to have a foundation to be able to use new words that come up in conversation that hadn't before. My hat goes off to this book.
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Could have been better.
Rating (3)
Date: 2000-11-28
0 out of 5 customers found this reveiw helpful
This could have been a five star book. It is organized very well and does an excellent job presenting how the endings of english words convert to spanish. e.g., (ive) to (ivo). However, it does not list all of the most common words in each category. Instead it gives some commonly used words plus words that look like an unusual ending was put on a common word. Also, it lists only a couple of exceptions to the rules where I would have preferred a comprehensive list of exceptions to each rule. A huge oversight in the pronunciation section was saying that all consanants are pronounced the same in engligh and spanish. What about the letter (v)? The author provides a good list of cognates at the end of the book that don't follow specific rules. Overall, I would say the book is worth for learning the rules that convert english to spanish words.
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