Spanish Voices is a two-part series designed to provide learners with an opportunity to hear and study authentic Spanish as it is spoken by native speakers from around Latin America and Spain. Unlike the scripted materials read by voice actors used in many course books, Spanish Voices offers dozens of audio essays spoken naturally and off-the-cuff. The materials in the books are designed to help you improve your listening skills and expand your vocabulary in Spanish. Bonus: The MP3s can be downloaded for free from our website, where you can also find interactive flashcards, quizzes, and games, as well as links to further listening and reading practice on the topics presented in the segments (audio essay chapters). Each segment consists of: 1) True or False and Multiple Choice exercises to sharpen your listening skills and increase how much you can understand, whatever your level. 2) Vocabulary and Translation exercises to help you expand your vocabulary and improve your understanding of Spanish collocations and grammar. 3) In-chapter answers to the exercises (no having to flip back and forth to the back of the book). 4) Verbatim transcripts of the audio with side-by-side English translations. 5) Lined sections for note-taking and recording new vocabulary.

This is a complete, unabridged republication of a Dictionary of Spoken Spanish, which was specially prepared by nationally known linguists for the U.S. War Department (TM#30-900). It is compiled from spoken Spanish and emphasizes idiom and colloquial usage in both Castilian and Latin American areas. More than 16,000 entries provide exact translations of both English and Spanish sentences and phrases; as many as 60 idioms are listed under each entry. This is easily the largest list of idiomatic constructions ever published. Travelers, business people, and students who are interested in Latin American studies have found this dictionary their best source for those expressions of daily life and social activity not usually found in books. More than 18,000 idioms are given, not as isolated words that you have to conjugate or alter, but as complete sentences that you can use without change. A 25-page introduction provides a rapid survey of Spanish sounds, grammar, and syntax, with full consideration of irregular verbs. It is especially apt in its modern treatment of phrase and clause structure. A 17-page appendix gives translations of geographical names, numbers, national holidays for Spanish countries, important street signs, useful expressions of high frequency, and a unique 7-page glossary of Spanish and Spanish-American foods and dishes.

A New Reference Grammar of Modern Spanish is a comprehensive, cohesive and clear guide to the forms and structures of Spanish as it is written and spoken today in Spain and Latin-America. It includes clear descriptions of all the main grammatical phenomena of Spanish, and their use, illustrated by numerous examples of contemporary Spanish, both Peninsular and Latin-American, formal and informal. Fully revised and updated, the sixth edition is even more relevant to students and teachers of Spanish. The sixth edition includes: • new chapters, providing more detail and examples of key areas of Spanish grammar; • an increased number of Mexican examples to reflect the growing interest in this country’s variety of Spanish; • new information for readers studying Spanish and French together; • a glossary of grammatical terms including English translations of Spanish terms. The combination of reference grammar and manual of current usage is invaluable for learners at level B2–C2 of the Common European Framework for Languages, and Intermediate High–Advanced High on the ACTFL proficiency scales.

This volume invites us to revisit ideology, censorship and translation by adopting a variety of perspectives. It presents case studies and theoretical analyses from different chronological periods and focuses on a variety of genres, themes and audiences. Focusing on issues that have thus far not been addressed in a sufficiently connected way and from a variety of disciplines, they analyse authentic translation work, procedures and strategies. The book considers the ethical and ideological implications for the translator, re-examines the role of the ideologist or the censor—as a stand-alone individual, as representative of a group, or as part of a larger apparatus—and establishes the translator’s scope of action. The chapters presented here contribute new ideas that help to elucidate both the role of the translator throughout history, as well as current practices. Collectively, in demonstrating the role that ideology and censorship play in the act of translation, the authors help to establish a connection between the past and the present across different genres, cultural traditions and audiences. The chapters in this book were originally published as a special issue of Perspectives: Studies in Translation Theory and Practice.

This textbook boosts the confidence of persons teaching Spanish as a second language, who may lack confidence in their understanding of tricky areas of expression. Their previous training did not enable them to control (much less explain to others) the many “danger zones” which challenge graduate students serving as teaching assistants, in-service teachers, and others who use Spanish professionally. It offers original and insightful analyses, abundant examples and helpful English comparisons. It dismantles the machinery of grammar into manageable parts. It is not intended for those wishing to learn Spanish (since it skips the basics to focus on the “rough spots”), but for those who know Spanish well, yet need to overcome their nagging limitations in crucial areas, e.g. subjunctive, reflexives, pronouns (neuter, relative, personal), adjective placement, ser/estar, preterite/imperfect, commands, gender, passive and impersonal expressions. There are special sections on words easily confused with each other, use of the accent mark, irregular verbs, and sentence structure. It is ideal for self-study or to supplement courses in composition, culture and Spanish linguistics. It benefits native-speaker teachers unfamiliar with the “why” of their language. The result is a better prepared teacher and a more promising learning experience for the students.

The Boom Femenino in Mexico: Reading Contemporary Women’s Writing is a collection of essays that focuses on literary production by women in Mexico over the last three decades. In its exploration of the boom femenino phenomenon, the book traces the history of the earlier boom in Latin American culture and investigates the implications of the use of the same term in the context of contemporary women’s writing from Mexico. In this way it engages critically with the cultural, historical and literary significance of the term illuminating the concept for a wide range of readers. It is clear that the entry of so many women writers into an arena traditionally reserved for men has prompted discussion around concepts such as ‘women’s writing’ and the very definition of ‘literature’ itself. Many of the contributors grapple with the theoretical tensions that such debates provoke offering an important opportunity to think critically about the texts produced during this period and the ways in which they have impacted on the Mexican and international cultural spheres. The project is comprehensive in its scope and, for the first time, brings together scholars from Mexico, the U.S. and Europe in a transnational forum. The book posits that despite certain aesthetic and thematic commonalities, the increased output by women writers in Mexico cannot be appraised as a unified literary movement. Instead it embraces a wide range of different generic forms and the subjects under study in the essays in the book include the best-selling work of Ángeles Mastretta, Elena Poniatowska and Laura Esquivel as well as the social and political preoccupations of journalists, Rosanna Reguillo and Cristina Pacheco. Contributors offer readings of the aesthetic visions of writers as diverse as Carmen Boullosa, Ana García Bergua, and Eve Gil while other essays examine the nuances of contemporary gender identity in the work of Ana Clavel, Sabina Berman, Brianda Domecq and María Luisa Puga. There are essays devoted to poetry by indigenous Mayan women and an analysis of the complex place of poetry within the broader framework of literary production. The problems that emerge as a result of literary cataloguing based on gender politics are also considered at length in a number of essays that take a panoramic view of literary production over the period. Various critical approaches are employed throughout and the collection as a whole demonstrates that academic interest in Mexican women’s writing of the boom femenio is thriving. Above all, the essays here provide a space in which the location of women within prevailing cultural paradigms in Mexico and their role in the mapping of power in evolving textual canons may be interrogated. It is clear from the collection that interest in such issues is still alive and that the debate is far from over.