Delightful stories, other material based on works of Don Juan Manuel, Luis Taboada, Ricardo Palma, other noted writers. Complete faithful English translations on facing pages. Exercises.
Spotlight customer reviews:
Customer Rating: Summary: Not for Beginners Comment: This book is not for beginners for sure. One needs to know the basics before you buy this one. For me, I'd say waste of money. Customer Rating: Summary: Entertaining as well as instructional Comment: This "First Spanish Reader" is well structured and contains stories that are lively and entertaining in their own right for the student who wants to move up from beginner toward intermediate Spanish. The text starts out with indicative and slowly introduces preterite and imperfect but stops short of subjunctive. Also, more vocabulary is introduced along the way at a reasonable pace.
The editor does a good job of mixing in shorter sections with proverbs and poems between the longer stories. And the stories are well selected in that they are entertaining aside from just language instruction. I found "El Guardagujas" and "La Fotografía" to be especially good.
Customer Rating: Summary: Helps extend your knowledge Comment: Great book with traditional stories that give you an insight into South American culture through language. What's best about this book is that it also has target questions about each of the stories that help you to extend your understanding of the text. There are a variety of stories of different lengths which means it's not too daunting. A great buy- I was more than impressed Customer Rating: Summary: Me gusto mucho este libro! Comment: I found this book most helpful in reviewing my knowledge and understanding of Spanish. I could attempt to read the passages in Spanish and then seen if I had understood them correctly by then reading the English version. It is a wonderful resource for intermediate and advanced students of the Spanish language to help reinforce what they have learned, and also exposes non-native speakers to the rich Latino literary culture. Customer Rating: Summary: bilingual parables Comment: I was hoping for something different. The parables are not i nteresting for high school kids. The stories are not laid out for best bilingual appreciation.
