Dorothy Richmond

I began work on this self-study workbook months ago, doing a few exercises almost each day. I finally finished. Dorothy Richmond packed this with lots of practice exercises, to the benefit of her students. My background is in educational psychology and I belong to the school that believes that practice is the key to learning, so this approach is ideal. I have to admire the author for her superb work in constructing all the exercises. As long as it took me to complete them, I know that writing them was longer and harder work than doing them. Hail Dorothy Richmond!… (more)

Successfully learning Spanish is about practicing the language, contextually and aloud, in a natural conversational setting. By immersing yourself in opportunities to speak with other native speakers while allowing for only minimal 'outs' to revert back to English, understanding the new language will occur quickly and efficiently. Though not necessarily easy. All other learning—memorizing vocab, verb conjugations, reading, writing, etc.—is important, but fundamentally pointless unless you're also learning to speak. It's taken me years to realize this.

That said, as long as you're getting in daily conversation practice, Dorothy Richmond's Practice Makes Perfect: Spanish Verb Tenses is an excellent learning supplement for the Spanish student. The worksheets range from simple fill-in-the-blanks to more substantial paragraph translations, with each chapter starting with a succinct explanation of a particular verb conjugation.… (more)