Book Notice

Book Notice VALERIO BÁEZ SAN JOSÉ, JOSEF DUBSKÝ, JANA KRÁLOVÁ: Moderní gramatika španĕlštiny (Modern Spanish Grammar), Fraus, Plzen 1999, 246 pg. ; MILADA KRBCOVÁ: Ejercicios y soluciones (Cvičení s klíčem k Moderní gramatice španĕlštiny), Fraus, Plzen 1999 The cooperation of three Czech and one Spanish linguists has led to the edition of the Modern Spanish Grammar, which is a very clear and usefull manual for the widest range of Czech speakers, whose main aim is to get familiar with the grammatical rules of every day Spanish communication This publication/textbook consists of two parts – a theoretical manual and an essential workbook with many exercises and the keys to them. The manual is thematically divided into four parts. The first chapter focuses on phonetics, rhythm of speech, correct pronunciation and its variants. Morphological aspects are the topic of the second part, which gives us a clear overview of all parts of speech, their formation, rules and their daily use, highlighting the main differences between Czech, European Spanish and the Latinamerican Spanish as well.. The questions on syntax are discussed in the third chapter. The formation of the vocabulary, the abbreviations and the influence of other foreign languages on the continuous development of Spanish are the topics of the last part of the manual. In order to facilitate the comprehension and memorisation of presented rules and their exceptions all explanations are followed by texts, which were carefully chosen from contemporary Spanish newspapers, magazines, scientific materials, publicity and tourist guides, and which nicely illustrate all grammatical difficulties. The authors have also chosen an interesting approach to the translation of given texts, where if needed the literal translation is written between brackets, and the various possibilities of instrumental translation follow afterwards or are separated by / sign. El culpable de toda su desgracia... (75) Viník celého/veškerého/všeho jeho něstěstí... Cuatro personas ,entre ellas dos bomberos perdieron la vida la pasada madrugada al incendiarse una discoteca en Valladolid (93) Čtyři osoby, mezi nimi dva hasiči, zahynuli v časných ranních hodinách při požáru diskotéky ve Valladolidu / když začala hořet diskotéka... 138 Language Design 3 Cualquier estudio siempre tendría al mar como referencia ineludible...(136) Jakákoliv studie se musí nutně zmiňovat o moři (mít moře jako nezbytnou připomínku ) - životnost v přeneseném slova smyslu, personifikace. The workbook, written by Milada Krbcová and revised by native Spanish teachers from Czech schools, was designed so as to help everyone who wants to improve his (already high) level of Spanish. It can be bought and used independently although in many cases the reference to the grammar manual might be necessary because of the difficulty of some exercises After many years of being limited to a very small number of textbooks and of being used to traditional grammar books including pure theory with a minimum number of examples, the edition of a high quality Spanish grammar handbook will be undoubtedly appreciated by all Czech students of Spanish and also by all authors of language textbooks. Barbora Molnárová University of Granada