The Ultimate Spanish Verb Review and Practice, Second Edition (Ultimate Review and Practice)
The Verb was the storm-center. This discovery made plain the right and wise course to pursue in order to acquire certainty and exactness in understanding the statements which the newspaper was daily endeavoring to convey to me: I must catch a Verb and tame it.                                             -- Mark Twain, "Italian With Grammar"The Ultimate Spanish Verb Review and Practice: Mastering Verbs and Sentence Building for Confident Communication, Second Edition is designed to provide advanced beginners through advanced learners of Spanish with a powerful tool for reviewing and mastering Spanish verb forms and turning these forms into the building blocks of meaningful sentences. We present the forms of Spanish verbs through verb paradigms in the seven simple tenses and seven compound tenses, and the progressive tenses, and proceed to show how these verb forms function in phrases, clauses, and sentences. This highly productive sentence-building feature, unique to our book, moves the learner effectively from verb forms to communication.We use a contrastive approach in presenting grammar, comparing Spanish verb tenses and structures to the usage of their English counterparts. Grammar explanations of verb formation and usage are clear, concise, and well-organized. Copious examples, many presented in dialogue format, reflect authentic, everyday language usage. Charts and tables are clear and easy to read. Verb lists are presented in structural and semantic groupings and include the latest additions to the lexicon, as in the case of verbs related to the computer and technology.All Spanish tenses and moods are presented in the 15 efficiently organized chapters of The Ultimate Spanish Verb Review and Practice, Second Edition. Each chapter treats one or more tenses, such as the preterit, or type of verb, such as stem-changing or irregular verbs. Following the presentation of verb paradigms and tenses is a section called Building Sentences, in which the chapter material is functionally expanded. As learners master each tense, they learn to expand the forms of that tense into real sentences that can be used for communication through the addition of different elements, such as other verbs, objects, and subordinate clauses, and the transformation of statements into questions. The flexible organization of the chapters permits the learner to study them in any order.The Ultimate Spanish Verb Review and Practice, Second Edition provides a large number of varied exercises that are designed to facilitate the learner's mastery of the Spanish verb system and sentence building. Exercise types include writing verb forms and dialogue exchanges, translation into Spanish and English, building sentences, replacement, expansion, and identifying types of sentences and verb endings. Useful current vocabulary is incorporated in the exercises. Some exercises provide helpful hints marked ¡Ojo! that aid the learner in proceeding correctly and efficiently. The Answer Key at the end of the book allows learners to monitor their progress as they work through the exercises.Several chapters have language boxes that present information about interesting lexical, historical, and cultural aspects of the Spanish language. These brief language notes are designed to enhance the learner's knowledge and appreciation of the language by presenting etymology, borrowing, punctuation, verb and tense formation, and other features.In this second edition, we have added an oral component to help learners make the crucial leap from written practice to oral control of forms and patterns. Recorded by native speakers of Spanish, the oral exercises to be practiced in each chapter are based on topics and material presented in the chapter. These structures, the building blocks of communication, will help learners progress to the next level of language skills development - listening and speaking. Many of the exercises are contextual, offering the learner practice in authentic settings, such as home and office. Instruction lines and Modelos for the oral exercises can be found on pages 281-292, and responses can be found on pages 317-337 of the Answer Key; to make these pages easy to find, a gray band is printed on their outer edges. The audio material is easily accessible using the Audio Study Player on the McGraw-Hill website.Our acclaimed grammar review and workbook, The Ultimate Spanish Review and Practice: Mastering Spanish Grammar for Confident Communication, Second Edition, provides learners with a highly effective tool for review and progress in the Spanish language. We use the same successful pedagogy in The Ultimate Spanish Verb Review and Practice, Second Edition, with the knowledge that learners will benefit measurably from its application. This book is ideal for learners working on their own and as an ancillary for students using a textbook in a classroom setting.We have every confidence that with The Ultimate Spanish Verb Review and Practice, Second Edition, you too will be able to catch a Verb and tame it!Ronni L. Gordon, PhDDavid M. Stillman, PhD