Lonely Planet Spanish Phrasebook: With Two-Way Dictionary

THIS PHRASEBOOK IS EXTREMELY VALUBLE. IT IS CONCISE, EASY TO READ, AND VERY HELPFUL. THERE ARE HINTS AND TIPS THROUGH OUT. THE GRAMMAR SECTION IS VERY HELPFUL. THIS IS ONE USER-FRIENDLY PHRASEBOOK.

This phrasebook was very useful to me in my trip to Spain. It's got a grammar section, topic sections (eating out, the post office, etc.), and a 2-way dictionary. The topic sections were very useful and easy to look up. The "menu decoder" in particular surprised me with its completeness -- most everything I didn't understand on menus was in there. I found the grammar sections also extremely useful. I studied Spanish for a year about 6 years ago and remembered the basics, but was stuck in the present tense. The phrasebook gave me a straightforward refresher on the past and future tenses as well as conjugation tables of irregular verbs. Maybe not the best thing to learn Spanish from scratch from, but a solid resource for someone with introductory skills.There are small English-Spanish and Spanish-English dictionaries in the end. In a book this size they're not very extensive, but they're still pretty useful. For a long trip (or if you're planning on having conversations that extend beyond a few sentences) a pocket dictionary would be helpful in addition.The phrasebook also has chapters on speaking Catalan and Basque if you really want to impressive the native speakers.

Haven't been to Spain as yet, but will try it out in Tulum this October. It's been helpful in translating emails from Spanish penpals.

When I went to Spain I had some Spanish training, but this book was still extremely helpful. It helped me remember and use parts of the language I had forgotten--for instance how to say Can I ___ and Can you ___? That is extremely important if you don't want to sound rude in a foreign country. More importantly, it was organized extremely well. If I needed vocabulary while I was shopping, I turned to the shopping section. When I wanted to prepare for asking a taxi driver how to get somewhere, I simply turned to the page about hailing a taxi and prepared. My deepest regret was losing the book halfway through my trip, but I had used it so much already that those phrases and words stuck with me all the way until the end. I suggest the book for anyone traveling to Spain (because it is Spanish for Spain as opposed to Spanish for Latin America), who would like to blend in and take as much from the country as you can. The book gives excellent advice about speaking a foreign language--just do it. It suggests you leave your inhibitions behind and try. You will get more comfortable with it as you go. That was absolutely true coming from someone who hadn't used the language in over 6 years.