To tell you a little about my background, I am the editor of the Learning Spanish Products Reviews newsletter. I am also a native Spanish speaker and a Spanish instructor. In addition, I am the author of two learning-Spanish products offered at Amazon.com (USA):

1. Anna Rivera’s 1000 Plus Most Powerful Spanish Words (English and Spanish Edition)

2.Anna Rivera’s 800 Plus Most Powerful Spanish Phrases (English and Spanish Edition)

By now, everyone is familiar with the Complete Idiot’s Guide series. They’ve got books on just about everything under the sun, and I was pleased to find that they cover language learning as well.

Learning a new language can be intimidating, but The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Learning Spanish on Your Own is an inviting and completely non-threatening book that I think any beginner would like. It’s both fun and effective and makes great use of visuals, which is something that I think most other materials like this overlook.

My main complaint about this book is that it’s sloppy in some places. There are multiple typos and misspellings and a few instances of incorrect information.

The practical side of The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Learning Spanish on Your Own, however, can’t be stressed enough. It covers idioms, slang and expressions thoroughly; the phonetic pronunciations are great; and there are helpful sidebars that explain exceptions to rules and provide tips for things that are confusing. Every chapter has exercises and an answer key for practice.

Anyone who might be traveling and wants to pick up Spanish quickly should buy this book. There’s enough here to get you to the point where you can have a basic conversation in a Spanish speaking country. But with the multiple typos and misspellings and a few instances of incorrect information, I am not able to give it more than 3 stars.

Rating: 3 / 5