Practice Makes Perfect: Spanish Conversation, Premium Fourth Edition

By Jean Yates

Speak Spanish with confidence!

Whether you're learning Spanish now at an intermediate level or looking to brush up on your conversational skills, Practice Makes Perfect: Spanish Conversation offers a unique and effective way to learn to speak the language fluently and spontaneously. You'll get started on sentence building right away, through extensive exercises that let you practice what you've learned through engaging dialogues using real-life examples.

Based on the successful approach of the Practice Makes Perfect series, Spanish Conversation, Premium Fourth Edition is organized around 12 units that present specific conversational functions and common, everyday scenarios—from introducing yourself and starting a conversation to making an appointment and arguing a point. The exclusive language lab app features streaming audio recordings of the dialogs in the book, helping you perfect your pronunciation, and every unit provides the opportunity not simply to converse, but to build and support correct grammar, syntax and word usage.

• Proven approach to learning helps you get a handle on Spanish conversation right away, and build on your skills as you go
• Extensive practice exercises and exposure to practical and high-frequency vocabulary, as well as an answer key for reference and quick feedback
• Includes a section of review exercises to test your understanding of all key themes
• Streaming audio recordings of all dialogues in the book, along with the answers to more than 100 exercises, are available via the app
• NEW in this premium edition: Enhanced app features including text-to-speech

• Language: English
• Publisher: McGraw-Hill Education
• Release date: Feb 2, 2024
• ISBN: 9781266009402

Book preview

The cover page of Practice Makes Perfect: Spanish Conversation, Premium Fourth Edition by Jean YatesThe ad page of Practice Makes Perfect: Spanish Conversation, Premium Fourth Edition by Jean YatesThe ad page of Practice Makes Perfect: Spanish Conversation, Premium Fourth Edition by Jean YatesPractice Makes Perfect: Spanish Conversation, Premium Fourth Edition by Jean Yates

The author is indebted to Luis Colomer and Gladys Ilarregui for their advice and constructive comments.

Copyright © 2024 by McGraw Hill. All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced or distributed in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of publisher.

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McGraw Hill Language Lab App

Audio recordings and flash cards are available to support your study of this book. Go to mhlanguagelab.com to access the online version of this application, or to locate links to the mobile app for iOS and Android devices. Note: Internet access required for streaming audio.

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Contents

Preface

1 Introducing yourself and others

2 Expressing opinions, likes, and dislikes

3 Striking up a conversation

4 Making dates and appointments

5 Describing people, places, and things

6 Expressing wants and needs

7 Making requests and offers

8 Expressing doubts and uncertainty

9 Talking about future events

10 Making a case or arguing a point

11 Narrating a story

12 Retelling a conversation

13 Talking about controversial issues

Appendix: Grammar review

Spanish-English glossary

English-Spanish glossary

Answer key

Preface

Practice Makes Perfect: Spanish Conversation is designed to give you practice with the vocabulary and structures that are most often used in common types of informal conversations.

The book consists of thirteen chapters, each one devoted to a singular conversational topic, arranged in no particular order. That is, each chapter begins with a typical conversation, which—like most natural conversations—may include a variety of verb tenses and moods. As the chapters are arranged by topic, rather than by grammatical forms or difficulty, you may change the order of topics/chapters according to your interests, or perhaps to coordinate with a textbook prescribed for your courses.

Following each model conversation is a discussion of vocabulary and structures that is especially useful for the type of conversation in question. You will find that certain expressions are used in more than one chapter, providing reinforcement, and demonstrating how they can be used in different contexts.

After each discussion section are several sets of written exercises designed to help you feel confident that you have understood the material. The exercises also give you practice in using new vocabulary and structures so that you will be able to use them in your own personal conversations.

At the end of the book you will find an Appendix that includes a review of the basic parts of speech; a guide to the formation of all the verb tenses and moods, including irregular forms; a Spanish-English glossary of the vocabulary included in the book; and an English-Spanish glossary of the same vocabulary. An answer key to all the written exercises follows.

We hope you will find this book useful, and that you will continue to practice your Spanish in conversations with your Spanish-speaking friends and acquaintances. ¡Siga hablando!

•1•

Introducing yourself and others

Conversation: Meeting at a party

Improving your conversation

Soy Mario

The most common way of introducing yourself or others is to use the verb ser plus your name or the name of the person you’re introducing. You can then add something else about the person.

Remember to use subject pronouns only if you’re changing the subject of the conversation. If it is clear whom you are talking about, leave off the subject pronoun (yo, usted, tú, él, ella, nosotros, nosotras, ustedes, vosotros, vosotras, ellos, ellas).

But if someone walks into a room and says, ¿Quién es Jaime? (Who is Jaime?), he would identify himself by saying, Soy yo./Yo soy Jaime. (It’s me./I’m Jaime.)

Encantada

This is a nice way of saying you are delighted or charmed to meet someone. Of course, a male would say Encantado. You could also say:

And if the other person says Mucho gusto or Encantado or Es un placer first, you can answer, Igualmente (Me, too) or El gusto es mío (The pleasure is mine).

Conocer

Conocer means to meet someone for the first time, and also to know, in the sense of already having met someone or having visited a place.

Encontrarse

To meet, in the sense of running into people you already know, is encontrarse.

Encontrarse can also mean to arrange to meet someone somewhere.

To meet, in the sense of having a meeting or a get together, is reunirse.

To know, in the sense of being aware of information, is saber.

Llamarse

Use this verb to ask for or to tell names. The verb, llamar—to call—is used with a reflexive pronoun here, and literally means to call oneself. It is perfectly all right to use the alternative expression, ¿Cuál es su nombre? (What is your name?), which is more like English.

Remember that a reflexive pronoun always refers to the same person as the conjugated verb.

Me llamo...

The same verb is used for telling names.

¿Verdad?

Adding this or one of the following expressions to a statement is a way of affirming that your listener agrees with you.

del Perú

The names of the following countries are traditionally used with a definite article.

Remember that de followed by el is always contracted to del.

It is becoming common, however, to omit the article.

The article is always used with El Salvador, as that is part of the name of the country.

When referring to the United States, the use of los is optional.

Sino

This is a great word for correcting a negative statement or impression. It implies but rather in English. First, state what isn’t true; then add sino and give the correction.

If there is a preposition in the construction, repeat it.

If you are correcting a verb, or repeating the verb in the correction, use sino que.

Que y quien

Qué is used to ask the question what. Quién is used to ask the question who when the answer is expected to be one person. If the answer is expected to be more than one person, quiénes is used. To identify or indicate more specifically which person has been mentioned, que—without a written accent mark—is used:

To add new information about a person, in an appositive phrase between commas, either que or quien (both without accent marks) can be used:

Remember that if there is a comma between the named person and who, you can use quien, but not otherwise. It’s always safest to use que.

¿Desde cuándo... ?

To find out how long something has been going on, instead of using the present perfect tense, as in English, use the following expressions with the present or present progressive tense in Spanish.

Or use the present tense of llevar + the gerund of the following verb.

Similar expressions indicate the length of time that something has not occurred.

Ya

Ya can mean now or already, but its meaning is usually expressed in English by rising intonation.

A ver

This is used to indicate that you are making a calculation and implies Let’s see/Let me see/Let me think.

Así que

This indicates a logical conclusion, and can be translated as so, with the meaning of therefore.

Bueno

This is often used as a lead-in to a response that requires a little explanation. In this case it does not mean good, but more like Well... or Actually...

Parece mentira

This expression—literally, It seems a lie—is better translated as It doesn’t