With a Little Help from My Friends: the dictionaries!
If you are a Beatles fan, you will know that sometimes we need a little help from our friends. This time, we want to delve into the importance of buying a good dictionary when you start learning a new language. If you are an English speaker, and your level is not yet sufficient to understand a Spanish-Spanish dictionary, we recommend you buy a nice edition of a Spanish-English dictionary. There are plenty of options in the
bookshops, starting from soft covers to old-school, reliable editions with several volumes for those who want to deepen into the language.
A must have for more advanced Spanish learners is The RAE Dictionary: a reference work for more than 500 million Spanish speakers around the world. The Royal Spanish Academy (Real Academia Española, generally abbreviated as RAE) is Spain's official royal institution with a mission to “ensure the stability of the Spanish language”. It is based in Madrid, Spain, and is associated with the national language academies in 22
other Spanish speaking nations through the Association of Academies of the Spanish Language.
Now we have the basics (no joke, understanding what a word means can save lives!), we can move on to grammar. Usually, when we ask newcomers at the academy what they find most difficult in their learning journey they mention with rolling eyes: augh, grammar! Luckily, in our Spanish Intensive Courses we tackle every subject with patience and method. Seriously, our teachers will make grammar exercises fun and
easy to remember. We are firm believers in the power of internalizing concepts through funny associations (like those present in songs, theatre pieces, board games and riddles). For grammar enthusiasts, we recommend this one: Practice Makes Perfect: Complete Spanish Grammar, Premium Fourth Edition has everything you need to progress from beginning to advanced fluency.
We asked our staff what they would recommend you and our teacher Adara suggests: “I recommend people buy a dictionary with conjugations and vocabulary. In classes I notice that one of the first difficulties that students encounter is that they lack the necessary vocabulary to express what they want, and that can be frustrating. For example, if you work as a nurse and you want to express in a class exercise what a
day in your life is like, you will need to know medical and hospital vocabulary.
Regarding a bilingual dictionary, Adara likes Vox Editorial Mini English-Spanish Dictionary. We find a good price-quality balance in Merriam-Webster's Spanish-English Dictionary. Last but not least, a recommendation for everyone who wants to impress their Intensive 25 (Group classes + conversation classes) teachers: a Dictionary of synonyms and antonyms. Larrousse has a good one, and you can find it in Amazon!
