2,001 Most Useful Spanish Words

This is a great book to keep with that pile of magazines in your bathroom—and I mean that as a compliment! 

2,001 Most Useful Spanish Words is not exactly the kind of book the average person would want to sit there and read for hours at a time in a comfy armchair—but 10 words at a time? Why not, when you’re already, er, on a practical mission?

Each word in this Dover Publications guide comes with a sample sentence illustrating its use. Gender information is provided for the nouns; translations are provided for everything. 

The vocabulary is useful and relevant, and the examples modern. Technology terms make an appearance, but a reasonable and balanced one. Some books these days go overboard with tech in my opinion; there are, after all, human activities that do not involve web surfing, Facebook, Twitter, texting, and so on.

Sometimes the sample sentences are sly. For amar (to love), the writer, Pablo García Loaeza, offers, “Yo te amo y tú amas la música.” (I love you and you love music.)

I like this one, too, for audífonos (earphones): “Quítate los audífonos para poder oír lo que te estoy diciendo.” (Take off your earphones so you can hear what I’m telling you.)

Published in 2010, this slim volume contains various opportunities to contemplate differences between English and Spanish. “Jealousy” and “gossip” in English, for example: singular.

In Spanish? Plural: los celos and los chismes. That seems kind of appropriate now that I think about it.

I’m not sure reading long lists of words with sample sentences is the most efficient way to acquire new vocabulary—in fact, I’m pretty sure it is not—but especially as a way to unfade some faded knowledge, 2,001 Most Useful Spanish Words is well worth the mere $4.95 you will have to relinquish to own it.