Spanish Stories / Cuentos Españoles (A Dual-Language Book) (English and Spanish Edition)

I enjoyed working through this book, but suspect it is a bit more than 'intermediate' in its target audience. The range of stories is very good and includes a couple of classics. Both Spain and Sapnish-speaking America are included. The endnotes are variable in value. There is a glossary at the end but a good dictionary will come in handy as well. On the whole, a helpful and informative collection.

This is James from James Spanish (the learning Spanish blog). This bi-lingual book is great for intermediate Spanish students wanting to apply what they have learned to a genuine context. The book is filled with stories from renowned Spanish authors such as Cervantes, Alarcon and Borges in the original Spanish and a faithful English translation.

This type of dual-language book encourages reading fluency and translational skills as well as helping to build vocabulary and give a fuller understanding of the Spanish language.

The format of the book allows for quick reference and translation, with the Spanish on one page, and the English translation on the facing page. This means you can read the stories more naturally, without flicking to different sections of the book to look up words that you are not familiar with.

The style of the authors vary, and you may find some writing easier to understand than others, just as you may find some of the stories more interesting than others. This will be due to your personal preference as well as your level of Spanish, so don't be too disheartened if you find yourself struggling to make it through one of the stories while others seem to flow easily.

A glossary in the back of the book provides a quick reference for many of the words covered in the stories so that you can reinforce what you have learned. You may also want to have a good English-Spanish dictionary to hand while you read the book so that you can have a more in depth translation of any words that are causing you trouble as well as another example of context so that you know how to use the new word you have learned.

These are the three Amazon products that I have found most helpful in my pursuit to learn Spanish.

1. Lights, Camera, Spanish (Book + DVD): Learn Conversational Spanish by Watching a Romantic Adventure This is actually a 90 minute movie for Spanish-language learners. It gives the option to watch the movie with subtitles but I'd recommend not using them to improve your Spanish. This "movie" also includes a workbook so that Spanish-language can reinforce the dialog from the film. The workbook also has lots of exercises to keep you engaged in
the film and to reinforce the Spanish that you learn.

2. Verbarrator Version 1.1 (Windows Version) This is a excellent piece of software which replaces the traditional verb conjugation books and makes learning how to conjugate Spanish verbs an interactive and fun activity.

3. Diccionario esencial de la lengua espanola de la Real Academia Espanola (Spanish Edition) I am not going to say that you have to get this particular Spanish dictionary
but if you are really serious about speaking the language fluently, then at some point you will need to replace your Spanish-English dictionary and get a pure Spanish
dictionary with both the vocabulary words and the definitions are entirely in Spanish.

This book is helping me learn more Spanish, the flow of the language. The first story was easy and I enjoyed it. Now I'm into learning! I'm very glad I made this purchase. Definitely not for the beginner or even intermediate.

I was excited to get this book because I thought it would be perfect for me. I have been trying to learn spanish for several years and it has been very difficult because I have trouble with comprehension. Usually I can read spanish better then I can understand it spoken, so I thought this was a good way to build my vocabulary and see the differences between the languages. And perhaps even record myself reading the stories for an extra way to take in the words. While I respect classical literature, this was more classroom/academic oriented then I wanted and seemed to be Spanish from Spain not Latin America. My husband is fluent in spoken Spanish (not necessarily reading/writing) and he didn't recognize some of the simple words so I knew this wasn't right for me. I was looking for more current modern stories at a more simple reading level. I am not saying you can't take anything from it but just wanted to make it more clear what to expect. I hope this is helpful to someone.

I purchased this book for a teen in Nicaragua as a gift. I cannot review the contents, but looking it over seemed to be a good concept for someone learning English.