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Review: Gramática de uso del Español | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Programs, Books & Tapes |  | |
| James29 Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5169 days ago 1265 posts - 2113 votes  Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: French | Message 1 of 24 23 May 2015 at 1:58pm | IP Logged |
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I recently finished Gramática de uso del Español. and am going to do a brief review. I did the B1/B2 book, but there are also books for A1/A2 and C1/C2 that have an identical structure and approach.
All things considered this is an outstanding resource. I have used over 20 programs/books/exercise resources in Spanish and this ranks up at the very top in many ways. I am quite surprised these resources do not get mentioned more often on this forum. The content is put together to focus on the curriculum of the Cervantes Institute for the corresponding level. In the B1/B2 book there were 116 lessons. My basic routine was to do one lesson each weekday. The lessons are all identical in setup. They are two pages. The book is a standard 8.5" x 11". On the left side of the page for each lesson the book lays out the grammar lesson for the day. It gives examples, exceptions and calls attention to certain particular uses. It also has references to other lessons where particular grammar points can be found in more detail. There are cartoon drawings that often help explain the grammar point. The book is entirely mono-lingual. With the exception of a vocabulary glossary that has translations into French, English and German there is only Spanish in this book. All the grammar points are taught from the target language so it is done quite differently than you would see in the typical Assimil or Living Language book where explanations of the grammar points are in English. On the right side of the lesson there are a variety exercises that drill the student on the grammar points of the lesson. The right side is the heart of the lesson. There are numerous different types of exercises from fill in the blank to matching to re-writing sentences, etc. Most lessons have 40-50 exercise questions. The exercises drill the nuances that no other book drills. They really get into the details and distinctions. Most of the exercises can be answered by looking back at the grammar page for the "rule" that is being drilled. My level when I started this book about six months ago was probably an average B2. I found most of the lessons to be a bit too "easy" for me. I would have gotten more out of the book had I been at a slightly lower level. That being said, every single lesson was useful. I felt like I was beginning to understand and tie grammar rules to things I knew intuitively. I already understood many of the concepts "by feel" but never really thought about them. Then by drilling the details of the grammar point I really internalized the grammar. This was incredibly useful. The fact that the book is so incredibly comprehensive is also a gigantic plus. The student doesn't just get a glossing over of the grammar point. They really get into very specific details about how the rule is used, exceptions and particular specialized uses. There are so many areas where someone feels like they "know" certain grammar rules but really only understand 90% of the uses. This book gets into and drills the other 10% of the grammar point that people don't ever get into. Personally, this was very useful for me because the lessons are so standardized in terms of amount of content. I could reliably and consistently complete a lesson in 20-25 minutes. This allowed me to develop a very good habit. I knew exactly how long it would take me to do the next lesson and that allowed me to build my study plan around this resource for about six months. The book uses the vosotros form just as much as the other verb forms. It is noticeably a "Spain Spanish" resource. If you are like me and don't really use the vosotros form often or study it you will get some exercises wrong, but I don't think this is a big problem because there is no reason why that cannot simply be ignored. The monolingual aspect of the book could be a positive or negative. I liked it. I also really liked the fact that the entire book was basically at the same "level." There was not really a sense that the book was getting a lot harder. Certainly, the earlier lessons were much easier than the last few lessons, but the entire book was more or less where it was advertised in terms of difficulty level (B1-B2). So often resources are either too hard or too easy for about half of the book. To explain this a little more... near the beginning of the book I often felt the lessons were useful and doing the drills really solidified the concepts in my mind, but I often did not need to even check the answers in the back of the book because I knew without a doubt that I was answering the questions correctly. By the end of the book I needed to check the answer to every exercise and I'd usually hover around the 90% mark in accuracy for the lesson. This is a point that I think needs highlighting. Students are often "stuck" at intermediate levels for a long time. There are these intermediate "plateaus." This book is a really good solution for this problem... for the student stuck in the B1-B2 range. When coupled with the C1-C2 book I think this resource can really be a reliable plateau breaker. The physical book itself was great. It is extremely durable. It is what I call a flexible hardback. It is like the 1980s Assimil books where it is flexible, but extremely durable. You get the feel that it will hold up through anything from being run over by a truck to being dropped into a fish tank. The book does focus a significant amount on writing which is good. Many resources do not. Just about every lesson has some exercises where you need to write out an answer. There is NOT any audio. For an intermediate/advanced resource I was totally fine with this. In case I did not make it clear above, this is a totally self-study resource. It is very different from many similar appearing resources in the sense that it is not designed for use in class or with an instructor. As a self-study student I REALLY liked this aspect of it. I NEVER felt that the grammar points were not fully and completely explained on the grammar side of things. I never felt "lost". I sometimes did need to go back and read the grammar lesson if I was having difficulties with the exercises, but that was all I needed. I really have no "complaints" and can say that this is probably one of the best resources I have ever used for Spanish. In terms of comprehensiveness, it ranks up there with FSI, but is so different they are hard to compare (edit: in actuality, this book was FAR more comprehensive for the B1/B2 level than FSI). I have done some of the Practice Makes Perfect books and, in my opinion, they pale in comparison to the quality and comprehensiveness of this book. Just as an example, people often mention the PMP subjunctive book. I have done it twice. It is a small PMP book that focuses entirely on the subjunctive. This grammar book probably has 3-4 times as much material on the subjunctive as the PMP book and the subjunctive gets hit from probably 10 times as many different angles because so many of the other grammar points have drills that bring in the subjunctive use. I'm not going to compare this to Assimil because it is simply so different, but I am going to say that I got MUCH more out of this book in the same amount of time as it took me to thoroughly do Assimil's Using Spanish. When I think back to all the time I put into programs like Using Spanish when I was roughly at the B1 stage I really wish I knew about this back then. My only regret is that I wish I used this book when I was at that earlier level. When I find a very good resource I like to re-do it. Having started this book at a solid B2 level I found it very useful, but there is no way I would want to go through the entire thing again. Edited by James29 on 23 May 2015 at 2:09pm 13 persons have voted this message useful | |
| Cavesa Triglot Senior Member Czech Republic Joined 4803 days ago 3277 posts - 6779 votes Speaks: Czech*, FrenchC2, EnglishC1 Studies: Spanish, German, Italian | Message 2 of 24 23 May 2015 at 2:32pm | IP Logged |
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I would like to add my experience, as I've been slowly working my way through the
A1/A2 volume of this book, comparing it with my previous experience with a similar book by Anaya and I have been asked a few questions recently. I totally agree with James29's review. What I would like to point out: -this is one of the resources you can use alongside anything else in whatever order you like. Whether the spine of your learning is Assimil, another course or simply native input, you can use this without any trouble. -The book is monolingual but it is extremely easy to use for a beginner as well. The first volume counts with limited vocabulary of the learner, in my opinion. There is the glossary but even if you prefer translation to another language, it is no tragedy to use a dictionary every now and than. The vocabulary presented is frequent and useful, it is not meant to be a huge obstacle per se. -The authors appear to have a sense of humour. The exemples are by far not as dry as many learners fear when opening a grammar book. -As I am comparing this book to the Anaya series, this one wins in most aspects. Don't get me wrong, Anaya is very good too, but the explanations and examples here are clearer, the book is bigger and therefore can afford being more comprehensive and so on. Unlike Anaya, I think this grammar can be a standalone grammar resource for a learner who uses this and native input while avoiding courses. Anaya makes the impression, at least to me, of being more like an aditional workbook to another course. Or it is possible that the authors of this grammar have more experience with learning a foreign language themselves so they are just better at giving the learner what thay trully need. The only "inconvenience" is, that such a big book is not easy to carry around with you. I solve it easily, I carry a smaller novel in Spanish with me instead for commuting ;-) -The content is relevant. If you don't think you need some parts right now, you can skip the lessons without any problem and that is totally fine. However, I suggest you get back from time to time and discover the chapters that hadn't seemed urgent before, they are in fact very valuable too. -One more comparison. For French learners, the most popular choice is usually Grammaire Progressive series for many reasons. It is a high quality series used and loved by self-teaching and class learners alike over years. Spanish has been popular for shorter time and therefore the popularity trends are still emerging and changing a lot, which includes tons of grammars on the bookshelves and many of them really crappy. I think Gramatica de Uso del Espanol deserves to become the "golden standard" for Spanish learners. -I think the price/value ratio is really good. There are cheaper options out there but this book will teach you a lot and I am quite sure you'll like to come back at times to this reference in the years and decades to come. I am quite sure I will. Now, after reading James29's review, I feel like continuing with the yellow book soon and fast, so that I can dive into the B level volume. Edited by Cavesa on 23 May 2015 at 2:37pm 8 persons have voted this message useful | |
| James29 Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5169 days ago 1265 posts - 2113 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: French | Message 3 of 24 23 May 2015 at 5:07pm | IP Logged |
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Thank you for the additional comments, Cavesa. One thing I started to write about was wondering if this series would be appropriate for the A1/A2. I have not seen the A1/A2 book so that's nice to see that it is appropriate for a beginner. That was one area I simply could not comment on.
Also, I did the book straight through, but Cavesa is right... one can certainly skip around and focus on any particular issue. The lessons are only mildly grouped together and there is a ton of overlap. For the subjunctive, for example, there were probably only six or seven lessons specifically titled as being on the subjunctive, but there were probably 20-ish that had a significant amount of subjunctive grammar. 4 persons have voted this message useful | |
| tastyonions Triglot Senior Member United States goo.gl/UIdChYRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4459 days ago 1044 posts - 1823 votes Speaks: English*, French, Spanish Studies: Italian | Message 4 of 24 24 May 2015 at 5:01pm | IP Logged |
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Thanks for the review. I think my level is around B1 and this sounds like it could be useful for me.
1 person has voted this message useful | |
| iguanamon Pentaglot Senior Member Virgin Islands Speaks: Ladino Joined 5056 days ago 2237 posts - 6731 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Portuguese, Haitian Creole, Creole (French) | Message 5 of 24 24 May 2015 at 5:18pm | IP Logged |
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Glad that you enjoyed it so much, James29. You'll get a lot more out of the next level as well. If anyone else would like to use these books, the exercises at the Centro Virtual Cervantes aveteca are a great compliment. They're also monolingual multimedia, and graded from A1 through C1.
Many learners seem to have an irrational fear of monolingual resources- "what will I do without English (or other native language) there to help me?". There's no need to worry. These resources are designed with a learner in mind. You're not going to be over-challenged at your appropriate level. These are the types of learning resources I seek out. One of the frequent questions from newbies is "how do I think in the language?". The great thing about a good, monolingual resource is that it will definitely get you thinking in the language. Many successful learners here prefer courses that are, if not monolingual, to at least have as little English as possible. (are you paying attention, Pimsleur? Yes, as soon as possible). If you are still having trouble with a concept, there are myriad ways to get an explanation in your native language. I am not saying to use monolingual resources exclusively, but if a learner will give them a try, and at least add a monolingual resource into the mix, the benefits can be huge, not only in learning concepts but also in learning to think in the language. Edited by iguanamon on 24 May 2015 at 5:36pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Cavesa Triglot Senior Member Czech Republic Joined 4803 days ago 3277 posts - 6779 votes Speaks: Czech*, FrenchC2, EnglishC1 Studies: Spanish, German, Italian | Message 6 of 24 24 May 2015 at 5:42pm | IP Logged |
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Well, one of the reasons for this irrational fear is that learners whose native languageis a big one are spoiled by the amount of resources available. And so we get to situation where people on the forum are mostly recommending each other over and over the same things even though, by the requirements and needs they mention, something different and monolingual would serve them better.
I totally agree with iguanamon. it is even more unfounded to avoid monolingual resources now that you can just google any question. It is no longer a problem to get online a dictionary, a pronunciation or a word, a grammar explanation and tons of examples for quite any language. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Zireael Triglot Senior Member Poland Joined 4445 days ago 518 posts - 636 votes Speaks: Polish*, EnglishB2, Spanish Studies: German, Sign Language, Tok Pisin, Arabic (Yemeni), Old English | Message 7 of 24 24 May 2015 at 6:31pm | IP Logged |
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I've used this book when preparing for my B2 exam in Spanish. The fact that I passed is I think a testament to the fact that it works. It was really good at explaining the grammar points I couldn't get earlier (even though it was not perfect), but the use of vosotros galled me a bit - I'm one of those people who had no need to study/use it.
2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| Cavesa Triglot Senior Member Czech Republic Joined 4803 days ago 3277 posts - 6779 votes Speaks: Czech*, FrenchC2, EnglishC1 Studies: Spanish, German, Italian | Message 8 of 24 25 May 2015 at 12:40am | IP Logged |
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Well, that's why I find it wrong there is still such a huge disbalance between amount of resources for the european Spanish and the latin american variants. I use european Spanish, vosotros is a normal thing, bread and butter of a speaker. Just a plural you. Vos, more common in the Latin Amerian variants and different, is something I never actively need, yet some resources (such as the Anaya Gramatica) give it equal space as to the other forms (and I usually just get it wrong in most exercises).
Perhaps it would be nice if those with experience shared their tips on grammar resources focused on Latin American Spanish. I find it hard to believe everyone there just uses grammars from Spain where the LA specifics come in small print at the bottom of the page. 2 persons have voted this message useful |
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