Conrad Schmitt

I bought this book on the recommendation of a professor of Level 5 Spanish at NYU. That being said, I still have a long way to go towards fluency as a Spanish speaker. Consequently, Schaum's Outline of Spanish Grammar works for me. I was immediately impressed by the user-friendly format of this text. It's an appropriate breakdown of grammar for intermediate to advanced students, and for anyone motivated towards studying Spanish, whether auto-didactically, in a classroom context, or both. It took me a while to complete all the exercises, but it was definitely worth the effort [Chapter 3 (Verbs) alone takes up 79 pages of this 194 page book]. This text functions as a great review for someone who has already studied Spanish and who wants to brush up on whatever they may have forgotten. I think if one were to consistently use this book as a study guide, if they live in a Spanish-speaking city (even in the USA), knowing the grammar presented in these exercises would provide much-needed confidence for diving into the world of spoken Spanish. I am going to hold onto this valuable reference guide.
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There are certain words you just do not typically learn as a beginner in Spanish. Once you do have that "basic" foundation though, this book can help you expand your knowledge and be able to have more confidence talking and reading about 30 different topics. This book is full of exercises as well which is great because you can practice what you learn. I was not very sure how helpful this book would be as I had already studied Spanish (well, it was on and off) for a year and 10 months, and the topics seemed like they would be easy to talk about, like things around the home, in the restaurant, crime, sports, travel, etc, but after going through the book I realized how much I actually did not know and how much the book helped me. There are few things that I did not find helpful (but the only chapter I felt I was wasting my time doing was the last one about politics and government because 1)It was mostly about stuff in the United States, and 2)I am not very interested in the subject matter and cannot see myself having conversations about it.) Answers are in the back which is nice and the book is very affordable. There were few errors (a few times they forgot to include answers to a couple of questions in the back or they accidentally gave the answers of question #10 as the answers of question #8 and vice versa.) Few typing errors. None of this really matters that much, as it does not really interfere with learning. They are just little things that I notice.

Anyway, I think for anyone (at the high-beginner to high-intermediate level) learning Spanish would find this book definitely worth their money and time.… (more)