Spanish For Dummies is one of the books in the successful "For Dummies…" series. It obviously targets the Spanish language and sets out to help you learn Spanish quick in a simple and interesting.
Spanish For Dummies has been written by those who know the language best at the Berlitz language school. The book features common expressions and phrases that you will find helpful while you are on vacation, and attempts to get you familar with the language.
The Spanish For Dummies book describes itself as being, "…the ultimate guide for speaking Spanish quick and easy." The book is comes with a CD-ROM, allowing you to listen the language spoken by native speakers.
In some way, you can say that any starter Spanish learning course as being Spanish for dummies , in a general sense that is. The idea is that it can take a beginner who has no knowledge about Spanish, from knowing absolutely nothing to at least speaking some common phrases in Spanish.
There are plenty of courses like that you'll be pleased to hear. Nowadays, language courses have started concentrating on the fun element of learning a language, downplaying the need for grammar, syntax and cultural nuance, and replacing it with shortcuts, tricks and tips to actually speaking the language with other native speakers.
Grammar certainly has its place. Spanish grammar is fairly different from English grammar. That's why they will describe a new car as "un coche nuevo," literally, "a car new." There is not a lot you can do about that other than just learning it.
Translating literally from English to Spanish is a very bad idea. That would come out as, in our example, "un nuevo coche," and would sound just as bad to a Spanish person as "a car new" sounds to you! As a rough rule of thumb, put the adjective, the describing word, after the noun, the thing being described. This is the opposite of the normal rules in English.
The Spanish for dummies type of courses tend rather to concentrate on the easier aspects of things. There are a large number of Spanish terms, for instance, that are very similar to their English equivalents. Most of the time, they change only with the suffixs. Words in English ending in "ant" often become words ending in "ante" in Spanish. Por ejemple (that's Spanish and I'm sure you are able to guess what it means), "important" becomes "importante."
But that's not all…
A fair number of the "ent" ending English words become "ente" in Spanish, such as "evidente." A fair number of the "ible" and "able" ending words stay the same in both languages: comparable, combustible. A number of Spanish words merely drop English endings, such as the "ate" ending words where "participate" becomes "participa" and "terminate" becomes "termina."
How many English words can you think of that suffix in "ary"? There are dozens and you've just learned as whole lot more Spanish words, because you can adapt the English to Spanish by changing the "ary" ending to an "ario" ending.
Spanish for dummies can be the title of a best selling language book, or it can simply be a way to describe a good Spanish course aimed at helping you learn Spanish fast with the minimum of fuss.
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