Correct Your Spanish Blunders: How to Avoid 99% of the Common Mistakes Made by Learners of Spanish

A witty, fast-paced guide to eliminating Spanish bloopers for beginners

Mixing genders, inverting subjects and objects, and trusting falsos amigos (a.k.a., false cognates) are just a few of the blunders English-speaking Spanish-language learners commonly make. In Correct Your Spanish Blunders, veteran Spanish teacher Jean Yates identifies these and other common trouble spots and clearly explains the reasons behind them. Learners discover how grammar patterns of Spanish differ from those of English and why trying to translate word for word, structure for structure, from English, can lead to big trouble.

Beginning Spanish students learn to break bad habits and correct their mistakes, while developing a much more natural feel for Spanish language patterns­­and have fun doing it!­­with the help of:

• More than 1,000 highlighted examples of common blunders to avoid
• Numerous examples and practical exercises
• Quick-reference panels for checking correct tense forms
• A "Hall of Shame" compendium of bad errors to recognize and correct

Jean Yates teaches Spanish at George Washington University. She has also taught Spanish as a second language on the high school and community college levels and to adults in the workplace. She lives in Arlington, Virginia.