Overview
Main description
A witty, fast-paced guide to eliminating Spanish bloopers for beginners
Mixing genders, inverting subjects and objects, and trusting falsos amigos (a.k.a., false cognates) are just a few of the blunders English-speaking Spanish-language learners commonly make. In Correct Your Spanish Blunders, veteran Spanish teacher Jean Yates identifies these and other common trouble spots and clearly explains the reasons behind them. Learners discover how grammar patterns of Spanish differ from those of English and why trying to translate word for word, structure for structure, from English, can lead to big trouble.
Beginning Spanish students learn to break bad habits and correct their mistakes, while developing a much more natural feel for Spanish language patternsand have fun doing it!with the help of:
- More than 1,000 highlighted examples of common blunders to avoid
- Numerous examples and practical exercises
- Quick-reference panels for checking correct tense forms
- A "Hall of Shame" compendium of bad errors to recognize and correct
Author comments
Jean Yates teaches Spanish at George Washington University. She has also taught Spanish as a second language on the high school and community college levels and to adults in the workplace. She lives in Arlington, Virginia.
Back cover copy
Speak and write Spanish as if it were your native tongue!
Tired of making the same old mistakes of switching your genders, confusing your tenses, and mixing up your idioms? It happens--but before you get used to speaking Spanglish, consult this guide and break those bad habits that leave everybody you talk to scratching their head. Correct Your Spanish Blunders not only tells you what you've done wrong with more than 1,000 of your typical learner errors, clearly highlighted in red, it also explains the reasons behind the mistakes, so you can correct yourself in the future.
With the aim of improving your Spanish skills, this fun but comprehensive guide will help you avoid all the common pitfalls, such as:
- Mispronunciation and misspelling
- Applying English grammar patterns to Spanish
- Putting verbs in the wrong tense
- Using incorrect prepositions in expressions
- Forgetting agreements in gender and number
- Hanging out with falsos amigos (false cognates)
Correct Your Spanish Blunders contains exercises covering all parts of grammar and wraps it all up with review passages to check that you are blunder-free. Soon, biting your nails will be your only bad habit!
