An Essential Course in Modern Spanish [antikvár]

PREFACE This book was written in answer to a very definite need: that of university students who offer Spanish as one of their Intermediate subjects. Honours students have long been able to consult their Harmer and Norton or their Ramsey, whilst school children and more leisured learners of the language can always choose from a mass of elementary courses. But Intermediate students, who start with no knowledge of the language and who are expected, within eight months, to reach a level approximately equivalent to scholarship standard at G.C.E. Advanced Level, for these there has been no course available, and teachers have been obliged in their classes either to use an advanced course selectively or to use a more elementary course and supplement it with their own notes. Neither method, I believe, is very satisfactory, either for students or for teachers. Hence the present book. But it is hoped that Intermediate students will not be the only ones to find the work useful. Every attempt has been made to draw up an essential course, essential in vocabulary, in idioms, and in grammar. Thus, the choice of vocabulary has been governed largely by the findings of Victor García Hoz on Spanish word frequency.1 All the words which he lists in his vocábulario fundamental (and which he estimates account for two out of every three words used in a given passage) are included in the present course, and all but ten per cent. of the words included in the course are rated by Dr García Hoz among the top quarter of his vocabulario usual. In similar fashion, Hayward Keniston's Spanish Idiom List (New York, 1929) has proved an invaluable guide to the choice of idioms and special constructions, and over ninety per cent. of cases listed by Professor Keniston with a rangé frequency of more than 20-50 have been included here. Finally, 1 V. García Hoz, Vocabulario usual, cotnún y fundamental (Determináción y andiisis de sus factores), C.S.I.C., Madrid, 1953. 5