Breaking Out of Beginner's Spanish (ISBN 029274322X)

wonderful read of spanish grammar/usage:
Perhaps the only book dealing with spanish grammar I enjoyed reading. The author does a wonderful job of not bogging down in technical jargon while instilling the difference between knowing the technicalities of a language and being FLUENT in a language. It was profoundly helpful!!

good resource for speaking spanish colloquially:
enjoyed the author's sense of humor and his knowledge of colloquial spanish in mexico and south america. good value for the student who wants to speak (rather than write) spanish.

The most entertaining language book you'll ever read!:
I recently bought another copy of this book as the first one has fallen to pieces from much use. It's not your typical language text and not for rank beginners but it certainly gets the points across in an easy and often humorous manner. The lack of an index is a minor annoyance, and who has ever died from having to flip through the pages of a book?

The Best Spanish Reference Book for Middle to Advanced Speakers:
This is a book that I have been searching for. Most of the books I have come across only give very "stiff-sounding" vocabulary and idioms. The author of this book seems to be someone similar to me in how I learned Spanish; 10 years of school and college and then going to Spanish speaking countries and dating Spanish women. He is very good at explaining a lot of things that are culture related. For example, the difference between "nice" and "not so nice" people in Spanish are differentiated as buen educado and mal educado. What I hate about most Spanish/English dictionaries is that words are not necessarily translated properly and I noticed that reverse lookup from the Spanish and the English sections sometimes don't correlate (saca puntos, which is pencil sharpener is incorrectly translated in the English section of many dictionaries to corta lapices). What I really find more valuable at my level is a Spanish dictionary with Spanish translations. This book is a valuable as that type of dictionary. So far this is the best book I have found for my level of Spanish.

Breaking Out of Beginner's Spanish:
GREAT BOOK!!!! Buy it if you are trying to advance from an intermediate speaker to an advanced speaker ... very useful