Some things just take a lot of practice to learn, and verb tenses are one of them! Practice Makes Perfect: Spanish Verb Tenses goes beyond the scope of many other books that deal with verbs. Typical verb books often present little more than charts of conjugations with perhaps some mechanical exercises that do little to help you really master when and why a particular verb tense should be used.

Spanish Verb Tenses fills this void by offering clear, concise, and at times, humorous explanations that pinpoint why a certain tense works in a given situation. The hundreds of varied exercises offer the added plus of allowing for lots of practice.

The book is divided into three main parts: Part I deals exclusively with the present tense-including the conjugation of regular verbs, formation of questions, essential differences between ser and estar, use of the personal a, reflexive verbs, and the present progressive mood.
Part II covers the other six tenses of the indicative mood: preterite, imperfect, future, conditional, present perfect, and past perfect.
Part III presents the imperative and the subjunctive, as well as the future perfect, conditional perfect, and the passive voice.

Two appendices complete the text-one lists verb conjugations, and the other highlights certain verbs and their corresponding prepositions. There are also two bilingual glossaries that define vocabulary introduced in the exercises.

As a companion to a basic text, as a review workbook, or as a reference source, Practice Makes Perfect: Spanish Verb Tenses is an indispensable tool for all those who want to practice and perfect their use of Spanish verbs.

About the Author

Dorothy Richmond is an experienced teacher of Spanish and successful author of Spanish language-learning grammars.

Inside This Book (Learn More)

First Sentence
The present tense is used to report what is happening and what is true now. Read the first page

Explore More
Concordance

Browse Sample Pages
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Back Cover

Tags Customers Associate with This Product

(What's this?)

Click on a tag to find related items, discussions, and people.

spanish(1)

workbooks(1)

Agree with these tags?

See all 3 tags...

What Other Items Do Customers Buy After Viewing This Item?

Practice Makes Perfect Spanish Verb Tenses, Second Edition by Dorothy Richmond Paperback
5.0 out of 5 stars (1)

CDN$ 10.79

Practice Makes Perfect: Spanish Vocabulary by Dorothy Richmond Paperback
4.4 out of 5 stars (5)

CDN$ 10.79

Practice Makes Perfect Spanish Pronouns and Prepositions, Second Edition by Dorothy Richmond Paperback
5.0 out of 5 stars (1)

CDN$ 10.91

Practice Makes Perfect Complete Spanish Grammar, 2nd Edition by Gilda Nissenberg Paperback
2.5 out of 5 stars (2)

CDN$ 11.64

› Explore similar items

Customer Reviews

51 Reviews

5 star:		(48)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

Average Customer Review

4.9 out of 5 stars (51 customer reviews)

Share your thoughts with other customers:

Create your own review

Most helpful customer reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Critique of Spanish Verb Tenses, Oct 10 2003

Dan Sehnal (Barcelona, Spain) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Practice Makes Perfect Spanish Verb Tenses (Paperback)

Verbs are the heart of any language. If you want to become knowledgable and facil at not only conjugting verbs but understanding the contextual usage and rules governing the uses of the verbs, then this is the book for you. I think that anyone interested in studying Spanish, especially if they want to study it on their own, should have this workbook as part of their repertoire. I have found it invaluable. I recommend it highly. (I have also purchased and studied Richmond's Pronouns and Preposition workbook and the reviews are similar.)

I have given the book a 4 star rating rather than five for the following reasons:

1. Lack of an index: (The same is true of the Pronouns and Preposition workbook.) I find it hard to comprehend how a contemporary academic book can be published without an index. There is a tremendous amount of valuable information contained in this book but being limited to the Table of Contents or to ones memory of where a specific item can be found is debilitating. This is a terrible ommission.

2. After studying the book thoroughly twice, my workbook is riddled with tabs and annotations in search of clarifications. A bit of addtional clarification and some additional examples before the author goes off into the exercises would potentially eliminate a considerable amount of confusion. The sections on Ser and Estar are a good example. It appears that sufficient explanaions are provided in the book (in the section on Ser for exaple) until one delves into further exercises in subsequent chapters of the book. There, knowledge of the full use of "Ser" is assumed, but referencing back to the original chapeter on "Ser" leaves one empty handed (in some but not all cases) as to why "Ser" was used rather than "Estar." This might seem picayune until one looks back on the total number of questions raised throughout the book. It is understandable that the author cannot anticipate all possible questions and points of confusion, but a bit more explanation and the use of additional examples would greatly amplify and clarify the grammatical content.

3. The student would also benefit greatly by having additional exercises in the book that mix and match what is learned in previous chapters (This is done is a few limited cases.) It is all too easy as an exercise to answer questions and translate text that directly follows the material being presented, for it is customed tailored to the points being made in that exercise. Addtional end of chapter exercise combining all that has been learned would be a valued addition. With that said, let me also add that the translation paragraphs at the end of each section (as humorous and as enjoyable as they are to translate) somewhat satisfy this contention, but not fully.

Help other customers find the most helpful reviews

Was this review helpful to you? Yes No

Report abuse

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Know Spanish Verbs Inside and Out!!!, July 24 2008

Brandon Simpson "Small Town Press" - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)

This review is from: Practice Makes Perfect Spanish Verb Tenses (Paperback)

This book on Spanish verb tenses is the best I've ever seen. In fact, it is probably the only book of its kind. I haven't seen any other books like this one, probably because it would be a waste of time for someone else to write a book like this.

The book first explains the present tense in great detail. It explains how the present tense is used in every possibleway. Although, it doesn't explain that the present tense is often used to convey a future action more often than the actual future is.

Richmond's explanation of the past tenses is also very good, but I didn't like how the imperfect and the preterit were explained. What I did like was how the author explains that the irregular preterit conjugations have predictable patterns.

The subjunctive is explained towards the end, which is one of the most difficult things to master in Spanish grammar. I didn't particularly care for the author's explanation of the subjunctive because it seems to be a "regurgitation" of how other books explain it.

All in all, this book is well worth its price. Every Spanish student (and teacher) should have a copy of "Practice Makes Perfect: Spanish Verb Tenses."

Brandon Simpson

Help other customers find the most helpful reviews

Was this review helpful to you? Yes No

Report abuse

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars lifesaver, Jun 19 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: Practice Makes Perfect Spanish Verb Tenses (Paperback)

I began working as a teacher at a school where many students and parents don't speak English. I poured over this book and its companion, Spanish Pronouns and Prepositions to review the Spanish I took in college and in high school (and hadn't had in several years). Within three months of review I took my state's Spanish Profiency Test for teachers and passed. I don't think I could have done it with out reviewing with these books. THe other review books I had were too long and drawn out. The instructions in the Practice Makes Perfect books were simple and clear and provided the ample practice problems I was looking for.

Help other customers find the most helpful reviews

Was this review helpful to you? Yes No

Report abuse

Share your thoughts with other customers: Create your own review

› See all 51 customer reviews on Amazon.ca

Want to see more reviews on this item?

› Go to Amazon.com to see all 154 reviews 4.9 out of 5 stars

Most recent customer reviews

1.0 out of 5 stars Haven't received it yet !!!
I have given this book a low rating - really I can't give it any rating - because ,while I should have received it by December 4,2009, I have not received the book and I have had... Read more

Published on Jan 1 2010 by Wendy A. Nielsen

5.0 out of 5 stars Best, cheap way to learn spanish!
There are many ways you can approach learning a new language. I find this book great for the Spanish language because once you can properly conjugate verbs that is most of the... Read more

Published on Sep 17 2009 by harderabs