Verbs are the backbone of any sentence, in any language. Without them the meaning is lost. Thus, a language resource with a focus on verbs is invaluable to any serious student at every level of learning. McGraw Hill publishes one such resource: Practice Makes Perfect Spanish Verb Tenses. It’s a book worth buying for anyone who wants to learn, practice, or just brush up on Spanish verbs.

The book is divided into sections by tense. The present tense dominates the first third of the book. The past, future, and conditional tenses have the second third. And the final third is filled with the more complicated subjunctive, imperative, and compound tenses.

One of the most impressive aspects of the book’s organization is that it recognizes the importance of the most commonly used Spanish verbs. Ser, Estar, Haber, and Gustar each have their own section within the tense categories, giving students a jump-start on the most extensively used verbs in the Spanish world.

Each section of the book contains short simple explanations of the verbs, their conjugation, and their uses. These paragraphs are followed by extensive exercises requiring students to read Spanish sentences and determine whether they are true or false; to translate phrases, and then paragraphs, from English to Spanish; and to write short essays describing their own lives using the verbs in each chapter. Because this book offers few nouns each student should keep a dictionary on hand for writing exercises.

This system is ideal for language comprehension. It ensures that students will not only memorize; they will understand how the verb is used and what form it should take in each instance. By offering this type of education, the program allows students to take ownership of the language. It isn’t foreign any longer; it is theirs to manipulate and present.

This verb tense book, authored by a Spanish instructor, demonstrates a fundamental understanding of how language is learned. Instead of simply providing tables and tables of verbs for memorization, it shows readers how to formulate those verbs into their own thoughts. Through extensive writing exercises and flatteringly short descriptions that assume the reader’s intelligence, this publication turns Spanish into a real strand of thoughts and ideas. It is no longer just a language to be painstakingly learned, but another way to put our ideas into words.

This article was written by Gigi Griffis.