Madrigal's Magic Key to Spanish - A Creative and Proven Approach

This would be an excellent Spanish teaching book, except for one thing. It doesn't tell you exactly how to pronounce the words. If I wasn't already familiar with the Spanish language, having grown up in an Hispanic neighborhood, I'd probably be saying a lot of the words wrong. Other than that, it's a very good book. Just be sure you order some Spanish CDs and/or speak Spanish with native speakers as often as possible.

This is a great approach to learning Spanish. It starts with all the words you already know and then builds grammar into your learning. I found it a better learning tool than the traditional approaches. The only negative for me was the fact that it has no CD where you can actually hear the spoken word so that you can make corrections in your pronunciation. With all the Spanish speaking folks in my area of the country I was able to overcome this negative with very little effort.

When learning a new language, you come across many many different products naturally claiming that they are the best. Eager language learners try many of them. Some stick, some don't. This book DEFINITELY stuck. The look of it is very old-fashioned, but the content seemed to sink in just a bit better. The lessons explain things in a thorough manner and end with many oral translation exercises that really drill the material into your brain.
That being said, this book is really old and does not include the "tu" form of anything whatsoever. Anyone who is learning Spanish knows that there is a polite (usted) and an informal (tú) way of addressing someone. This book only includes the polite forms and does not touch on the informal forms, which in modern Spanish is used quite frequently. In fact, countries like Argentina pretty much ONLY use the informal.
Experts say that no one should use just one text to learn a language. Whoever heeds this advice will most certainly come across that which this book omits. Aside from the omission, this book is wonderfully organized and extremely helpful. I highly recommend it. If someone were to update this book to include the informal way to say things, 5 stars all the way.

Reaslly good tool for learning conversational, every day Spanish. Since I had taken several years of Spanish lessons years ago, I initially struggled with the lack of conjugation, but eventually the teaching style followed in the book takes over! My husband, who has no previous experience learning Spanish, found it much easier to follow.

Very well done. Covers everything you need for beginning Spanish, in a tight and active format. Each chapter runs you through exercises that engage you actively, especially translating from English to Spanish. Written quite a few years ago does not in any way diminish its relevance. Stands the test of time. Later books are just trying to reinvent the wheel, which was perfectly round in the first place.

Not for beginners, packed with material 450 page paperback. I would not recommend as a 1st book, it does have some good tricks and tips to remember certain words. In my opinion you do need some basic Spanish to take advantage of the material in this book.
Shipping was fast received it in 3 days well ahead of schedule.

I read several reviews before selecting this book and it lives up to the reviews. I really like the way it teaches you to convert words you already know. I also like the way it teaches you to speak in past tense, as in "I walked", instead of "I walk", since we generally speak in terms of what we have already done instead of what we do. Great way of teaching.

If ever there was a book that teaches the Spanish language really well, this is it. It's not a book where you are taught some vocabulary words that you must remember. This book teaches you how to speak thousands of Spanish words and make hundreds of sentences within the first three chapters.

What a fantastic book in my quest to learn spanish. You will leap ahead because it makes fantastic sense in the learning process. If you have limited command of Spanish from a class or private tutor, this book will have you thinking and speaking more quickly.

The best thing about this book is that it engenders confidence. I started the first chapter and I felt like I could take on the world of Spanish because of how easy Margarita made it seem to translate words that had similar roots. Highly recommend as a place to start then get on to the complexities of grammar and irregularities.

If you are a beginner of Spanish, this is definitely the best book to get. It is very long and detailed, but the explanations are simple. There is a lot of repetition. It really is a magic key to learning Spanish. I recommend doing about a chapter a day if you can. You will really learn Spanish grammar with this great book. The price is also excellent for the large volume of information contained in this book.

Originally, I bought the eBook version which I enjoyed but was put off by registration problems. For example, tables would break into parts often on different pages. Thus, I decided to buy the softcover version. What I like about the book is that it immediately tells you what you need to know to get started in learning Spanish. It continues throughout the book adding vocabulary by showing the simple modifications of English words to make them Spanish and sprinkling in words you need to know that do not have a similar English equivalent. Over the years, I've studied Latin, ancient Greek, French, Italian and German and have not found a book as good as this for beginning to learn a language.

My boyfriend is from Reynosa, Mexico and we recently took a trip to his home town. Just off of this book, I was able to communicate PERFECTLY with his family and even go souvenir shopping for my family on my own! If you are serious about learning Spanish then this is the book for you! Even if you've never spoken a single word in Spanish, this is still a fantastic book for everyone!

My boyfriend is from Reynosa, Mexico and we recently took a trip to his home town. Just off of this book, I was able to communicate PERFECTLY with his family and even go souvenir shopping for my family on my own! If you are serious about learning Spanish then this is the book for you! Even if you've never spoken a single word in Spanish, this is still a fantastic book for everyone!

Her teaching style is so effective and the little tips and tricks have boosted my beginner level vocab to a slightly higher beginner's level of vocab within the first couple of chapters. I ended up gifting this book to a fellow traveler who is fairly fluent and he's run it to rags in the year that he's had it. The information and teaching style is accessible and fun. There is a simplicity to it that I haven't found in other books that I've tried. I'm buying a replacement copy for myself. Bueno!

I think the this is a great Spanish learning resource. I would recommend it to anyone who wants to learn Spanish. Its weakness is it only mentions the familiar verb forms and does not have a modern audio format in CD,DVD or MP3. If one truly wants understand spoken Spanish, one should listen to actual Spanish speakers. Of course a person can always supplement it with Spanish audio. I have both the kindle and paper back versions. I have given this as a gift to others interested in learning Spanish.

This is a good resource and like other reviewers have mentioned, groups sets of Spanish words together that follow a logical English translation process. This is the first resource I have used that breaks down the endless vocabulary into logical groups.
One aspect I don't like is that in the Kindle edition, there a spelling mistakes but again, because of the logical groupings, these are typically obvious.

This "Madrigal's Magic Key to Spansh", is an excellent
book to help you learn how to speak Spanish. Margarita
Madrigal was the best Spanish during her time. I highly recommend
this book for anyone learning Spanish.

Madrigal's Magic Key to Spanish is a well thought out plan to introduce the Spanish language and the key processes needed to master the language. It is organized in such a way that makes it easy for the reader/learner to understand and apply the lessons. If you want to have a solid foundation in order to speak Spanish, I highly recommend this book.

I've only just started, but I am really impressed by this style of language acquisition.

I'm only on lesson 4, but I feel like I know so many words already because each lesson is packed with information. Sometimes I try to listen/watch Telemundo or Univision and still have trouble understanding, but I feel more confident that I will eventually get it. I like that the author helps to reinforce lessons with flashcards (that you make yourself).

This is a fast track to learning Spanish, if you do what she tells you.

This book is fantastic, and an excellent supplement to my learning process. Best used at the beginning, but for this intermediate speaker it helped to fill in gaps/make important links that I hadn't done at my initiation into Spanish.

there is no way you cannot encounter anything that needs at least a basic knowledge of understanding/speaking Spanish, that is why i got this book which taught me a lot on how to speak, understand, and most importantly, how to convert english to spanish and make it easier to think of. totally recommend this great book!

This is a great help in learning Spanish. The formulas she uses in increasing vocabulary are very easy to learn. She starts out by teaching the past tense and there are lots of good aids to becoming conversational much quicker than conventional methods. A very good way to quickly increase your spanish speaking potential.