Customer Reviews:
 Great book, always in my pocket. July 10, 2008
D. Hillier (London, UK)
I found the colour coded sections very easy to navigate. I travelled for two months in South America and found that by and large the menu items were in the food and drink section, and usually a word or similar word could be found in the dictionary. The regional variations are helpful, for example a bus station could be 'estacion de Autobuses ', or 'terminal de omnibuses', depending on where you are.
I never really used the front grammar section, and there's no past or future tenses, but it's amazing how much Spanish you pick up from it. Small, discreet and fast to access once you know the sections, I would highly recommend this book. A Spanish CD course before I left helps with pronounciation pitfalls, but generally the phonetic spelling is spot on.
 Just don't expect the dictionary to be of any help November 18, 2007
M. Chatterton
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Its not, every word I looked up is missing and the restaurant section missed most of the specialities of Latin American countries for some reason. If you need a very simple "getting by" then this is a help, but take a dictionary as well.
Very helpful, and a quite fun read October 16, 2007
theamazinggem
We took this round South America with us last year, and while we had some spanish before we went and had lessons there, this book was great for giving you the regional differences. If you're moving from one country to another i would definitely recommend this to help you get to grips with what can almost seem like many different languages, rather than dialects of the same one.
 Useful, easy to read April 2, 2006
6 out of 6 found this review helpful
The layout of this phrasebook is excellent, clearly colour coded into sections. It has modern colloquial phrases and slang, the kind of language people really use, rather the traditional guidebook thing of " I come from an industrial town in the northwest of England" stuff. It also has interesting facts about each country throughout and a few social tips. Very useful.
Funny Phrases! January 27, 2006
Mick Wood (Chesterfield, Derbyshire United Kingdom)
15 out of 15 found this review helpful
Now, I'm not a spanish speaker at all and so this little book was to be my only way to commuicate if spanish was needed and as a rule it worked out very well. In fact I returned from my travels speaking much more spanish than I ever thought I would! What makes this book special though are the random, realistic and essentially very funny phrases included. It goes way further than the standard 'Donde esta el banco' (where's the bank?) with phrases such as 'Lo siento, no puedo levantarla' (I can't get it up - sorry!) providing hours of amusement! Well worth the buy if only for the romance/getting closer section - hilarious, especially when you 'accidently' come out with the wrong phrase to a local campesino!
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