Spanish language bootcamp?

March 8, 2013 5:23 PM

Hi Mefi! I'm a native Spanish speaker but, due to years of English-language immersion and doing my education solely in English, my Spanish is horrendous. I'm still very much fluent and can understand everything being said, but my grammar and more technical language have been completely demolished by English. I just got an internship where I'm going to have to speak with Spanish-only speakers and occasionally translate documents to Spanish, and I'm a little scared! Are there any good, quick grammar references or other resources for someone who just needs to brush up on things like correct prepositions and such, or similar resources for learning medical and technical vocabulary? Books especially welcome.
posted by Papagayo to writing & language (2 answers total)

I have found Using Spanish: A Guide to Contemporary Usage quite useful (I'm afraid it's on the pricey side, though).
posted by languagehat at 12:10 PM on March 9

My favorite is Spanish Verb Temses by Dorothy Devney Richmond; it is part of the Practice Makes Perfect series (see Amazon for all titles in the series). It has grammatical info paired with great examples and practice exercises, especially sentence and paragraph translations that will get you thinking in Spanish again immediately! I have recommended Spanish Verb Tenses to native speakers who need to "freshen up" their Spanish skills after several years in the U.S. and they agree it brought back their Spanish proficiency very quickly.
posted by twen at 7:17 PM on March 10