Margarita Madrigal, Madrigal's Magic Key to Spanish Review

Overall Rating

This is one of the best books on the market for teaching yourself Spanish, if not THE best book. Madrigal uses an instinctive approach to the language, concentrating on teaching verbs, words and phrases that you can actually use in everyday conversation. If you are trying to teach yourself Spanish, this is the book to start with.

This book diverges dramatically from most Spanish textbooks on the market. Rather than concentrate on the almost useless present indicative verb tense, Madrigal teaches the use of past, future and conditional tenses in a way that makes perfect sense. Rather than offering long lists of random nouns, she introduces nouns and phrases in contexts that make perfect sense. If you are expecting a textbook that is more-of-the-same of all the other books out there, you will be pleasantly surprised.

Margarita Madrigal, Madrigal's Magic Key to Spanish - Here's the first paragraph from Chapter 3. "Ordinarily, the present tense is taught first because it comes first in the order of the language. But I feel that the past tense will be more useful to you...You will be able to tell what you did and saw and how it impressed you. 'I did' this or that is the beginning of a story, whereas 'I do' thus and such is apt to stop you cold. 'I eat a lot' can only be followed by a few unpleasant remarks, but 'Last night I had dinner with Joe' opens up endless possibilities.'

She's right! I wish I had bought this book years ago!