The Spanish SpeakOut guide combines a dictionary, menu decoder, and phrasebook in one durable, pocket-sized package, with color photos throughout. Written by native speakers in an accessible, easy-to-understand style, it introduces Spain and her people and provides entertaining insights into the delights of regional Spanish cuisine. Readers learn how to follow a menu in Spanish and order local specialties like paella in the southeast or hearty stews inland, as well as tapas throughout the country. Dialogue boxes throughout the two-way dictionary ensure that travelers can deal with every situation, from booking a hotel room to filling the car with gas. In addition, two PopOut phrase menus provide instant access to 200 essential phrases on eating, shopping, traveling, and sightseeing, and a light-up pen in the spine can be used on note pages at the back of the dictionary.

There’s a difference between learning a language and being able to speak it with the familiarity of a native speaker. This book fills that gap, clarifying tricky words and expressions and illuminating the finer points of Spanish wordplay and double meanings.

This is a complete, unabridged republication of a Dictionary of Spoken Spanish, which was specially prepared by nationally known linguists for the U.S. War Department (TM#30-900). It is compiled from spoken Spanish and emphasizes idiom and colloquial usage in both Castilian and Latin American areas. More than 16,000 entries provide exact translations of both English and Spanish sentences and phrases; as many as 60 idioms are listed under each entry. This is easily the largest list of idiomatic constructions ever published. Travelers, business people, and students who are interested in Latin American studies have found this dictionary their best source for those expressions of daily life and social activity not usually found in books. More than 18,000 idioms are given, not as isolated words that you have to conjugate or alter, but as complete sentences that you can use without change. A 25-page introduction provides a rapid survey of Spanish sounds, grammar, and syntax, with full consideration of irregular verbs. It is especially apt in its modern treatment of phrase and clause structure. A 17-page appendix gives translations of geographical names, numbers, national holidays for Spanish countries, important street signs, useful expressions of high frequency, and a unique 7-page glossary of Spanish and Spanish-American foods and dishes.