I have used this book and it is excellent! I was an absolute beginner at learning German and after completing this book, i knew all the basics and i started learning German more easily. There is a lot of repetition and good understandable excersizes to go through and learn...if you are an absolute beginner i definately recommend this book.

I've used many language help books but this one is my favorite. I felt like I could indeed self teach Italian. And when I went to Italy my cousins there did understand me (for the most part). It's a great book for slowly building to a conversational understanding of the language.

My husband and I review this book from cover to cover each year before we go back to Italy. We have been doing this for 20 years. I am about to order another paperback as I use it so much. This is a classic book. So easy to learn with pictures and words. For someone who knows no Italian, it is the perfect book to start with.

The author claims that the user will be "pleasantly surprised at how easy it is to learn Italian with the method used in this book." I must say that truer words were never written. This little book will somehow have you "thinking" basic Italian very quickly.

I guess that the pictures help reinforce the learning process, but that's not what makes this book great. It's the grouping of the ideas on the page that makes it so comprehensible. Not only do the "lessons" logically progress, each one also stands on its own as a useful learning experience. This confirms the author's claim that each page is a lesson unto itself.

The book has a pronunciation guide, a limited but useful index, and a small Italian to English dictionary. There are also a number of "Everyday Expressions," that are just what the doctor ordered.

This is a "must have" book. Yes, you may quickly outgrow it, but you will find yourself referring to it often as you continue your studies.

Most beginning Spanish texts start with phrases like "How are you?" that don't translate literally very well (Como se llama = How yourself are-called). Not only that, the grammar structures of these phrases have so little in common that you can't even see a pattern. This book starts with words and phrases that make sense right away and introduces phrases only as the background knowledge allows for these to be understood rather than just memorized. Even the most oddball constructions are presented with several other constructions that are oddball in exactly the same way, so that once you figure out one thing, you know a lot of other things, too. This book is especially good at teaching grammar.

I see only three problems with this book: 1) The last three and a half chapters (out of 45) are light on the practice sessions, 2) There is less vocabulary than in other books, and 3) The organization is so different that this book would be a little difficult to use in conjunction with other books. For example, in this book you learn the past tense first (which you are more likely to see in books and on displays) rather than the present tense.

It could be argued that the last three and a half chapters are of little importance and/or are thoroughly covered in intermediate texts. And you could easily supplement your vocabulary with any old book from a used bookstore.

If other books don't make sense to you or if you have trouble learning grammar, get this book!

When I first tried to learn Spanish, all that I had was an ancient Spanish-English diccionary that my grandmother gave me, and it was taking me nowhere. I went to the local library and found my way to "Madrigal's Magic Key to Spanish". I read the book in under two weeks and it was amazing. I could then begin to decipher the telenovelas on the Spanish television, and I began to be able to speak spanish to my grandparents. Along with experience, I believe that anybody can become fluent in spanish with the aid of this book. Listening experience such as watching television is acceptable, but speaking experience with natives is preferable. I recommend this book to anybody seeking to learn Spanish. It laid out my whole foundation for grammar and much of it for vocabulary. It is said that a speaking second language is essential in today's world, this book is the perfect way to acheive it.

This book is loaded with great info on vocabulary-building, grammar, verb-conjugation, usage, etc. even though it was originally written in the 1950's. But what makes this book stand out for me is the "magic key" that Madrigal provides that allows one to derive or intelligently "guess" hundreds and hundreds of words, including verbs, based on words you already know in English which can be converted into Spanish with little to no modification following a few basic rules. It's actually AMAZING!

In addition to the "magic key" and the other useful info it presents, Madrigal's Magic Key to Spanish is written in a very informal, unpressured style that reassures the reader constantly that they will master the material in short order, with quizzes and periodic self-tests to reinforce the learning process.

As I was already a beginning to intermediate Spanish speaker when I first encountered this book, I cannot say how well it would work for someone with little to no previous experience with the language. My sense is that it will be more helpful for people who are at least familiar with Spanish pronunciation and rudimentary grammar, although it is written as if the reader has no previous knowledge of the language.

It's also cool that Andy Warhol did the illustrations for this book.

I love this book! I highly recommend it to anyone who wants to exponentially leap forward in their knowledge of the living Spanish language.

See It and Say It in German is undoubtedly a useful and informative conversation course for beginners that has helped me along in my endeavor to learn the German language. I've worked through this paperback a handful of times and still gladly refer to and use it. It contains a total of 256 pages. Margarita Madrigal and Inge D. Halpert are the authors of this guide--both of them are internationally well-known language instructors. See It and Say It in German was initially released in 1962. When it comes to the contents, there's a pronunciation guide, conversation lessons, a traveler's handy word guide, a grammar section (containing a list of verbs and exercises), an A-Z German-English vocabulary section, and an index. See It and Say It in German contains two learning methods that have been successfully used by thousands of students: the word-and-picture aid and the ready-made vocabulary. The words, phrases, and sentences are shown with drawings that explain their meanings. Ready-made vocabulary provides the learner from the beginning with words and phrases that look and sound like their English equals. As for the conversation lessons, each page includes one lesson. Actually, you don't have to work through the lessons starting from the beginning; you can randomly go to whichever lesson that you want. Other material that is included within the conversation lessons section are exercises to test your progress, everyday expressions, a page on telling time, a page consisting of a list of regular verbs, another list of verbs on two pages, and a composition on Vienna. The traveler's handy word guide contains words that are used in restaurants, hotels, and stores. Also, numbers, family terms, colors, days of the week, months of the year, seasons of the year, and parts of the body are featured. See It and Say It in German is a good, user-friendly paperback that I find to be helpful.

This little pocket book is very useful to go along with whatever German language course you're taking. Not only will this book help you to learn how to pronounce German syllables and letters correctly, but there are simple drawings on each page to help you become familiar with each new word or phrase.I've been studying German off and on for the last twenty-one years and I bought this in 1980 to go along with the language course I was taking. Without it I doubt I would have come this far. I met my longtime German penpal many years later and got to try out my German with him. He was impressed with my pronunciation. I highly recommend this book as well as the other editions for French, Spanish and Italian.

Have lived in Germany and Austria several years. Used this book when I initially moved to Germany and literally was comfortable speaking after only 3 months! I recommend this to all my colleagues who travel abroad. Also, anybody who is serious about learning a language must realize that classroom instruction is very purposeful to get you in the right direction for both pronunciation and grammer, but sitting down and learning on your own is unquestionably the absolute only way to really learn a foriegn language (I speak 3). This book RULES!

I was expecting something with more phonetic pronounciations to go with the pictures. I was disappointed with book.

The drawings really help imprint the words into your memory. A perfect first book for someone who wants to learn Spanish. The verb conjugations in the back alone are worth the cost of the book. Won't help with pronunciation, but no book really can.

This book makes the language intuitive while focusing the brain to think in Spanish instead of translating words.

Your Knowledge of the Present and Past tense will emerge automatically without translating to find the answer.

Your understanding and ability to speak Spanish will increase dramatically.

This book will get you started with phrases and proved a real survivor manual for me while traveling through France. The key to learning French is to try and speak it. I found this book helpful and encouraging...

For the past four years, I have used this book as a "textbook" for teaching beginning French conversation to elementary students in our schools. The book pairs easy-to-learn phrases with simple pictures--and does not go too deep into French grammar, which is perfect for my teaching methods. The book encourages the joy of "speaking" rather than conjugating verbs, and should not be purchased by those who need (or want) to enhance their grammar skills. But for "speaking conversational phrases" it's perfect...and the appendix, with its simplified vocabulary, is great. My husband, who knows NO French except what he "learned" from this book, survives in France very well when we take young students to Paris on a "field trip." This book is a very good way to begin learning the complicated French language.

This book was the textbook for a continuing education course in Spanish that I was in. The book has clear definitions and explanations, as well as exercises to practice each new concept. The audio tape was especially helpful to review pronounciations away from class. However, only certain exercises in each section are on the audio tape. Although there are many books out there to help you learn Spanish, I have found that this one works the best!