Easy Spanish Step-By-Step

Why it's worth it

Easy Spanish Step-By-Step teaches grammar in order of how often you'll actually use it, so you can build real sentences within the first few chapters. It's the rare beginner book that doesn't dump irregular verbs on you before you can order coffee.

If you've never studied Spanish, start here. Barbara Bregstein sequences grammar by communicative importance rather than by textbook tradition. You get the most frequent verbs and their present-tense forms first, because those are the building blocks of every real conversation. Past and future come later, once the foundation holds. Owners who'd failed with other books repeatedly point to this ordering as the reason this one finally stuck.

The listing says more than 300 verbs and key terms are introduced by frequency, and that number matters less than the principle behind it. You're not memorizing vocabulary you won't hit for months. Each new concept arrives only after the previous one has been drilled, which keeps the overwhelm down. Readers describe it as bite-sized in the best way — you can finish a chunk in a sitting and feel like you got somewhere.

From our review of 7 language learning workbooks, by Genevieve Dubois, Home & Living Expert

What we like

• +If you've never studied Spanish, start here
• +The listing says more than 300 verbs and key terms are introduced by frequency, and that number matters less than the principle…
• +There are embedded readings, too, not just fill-in-the-blanks
• +The explanations are written for adults who don't know grammar terminology

What to know

• –The methodical pace is the whole point, and it's also the problem if you've studied Spanish before
• –There's no audio. For Spanish that's a real gap, since pronunciation errors fossilize fast and get hard to undo later