Comparative Grammar of Spanish, Portuguese, Italian and French: Learn & Compare 4 Languages Simultaneously Paperback – July 2, 2018

I cannot thank the author enough for writing this innovative book. I always wanted to learn Portuguese, further my French and begin Italian parting from Spanish (my native language). This book does it and puts in context which is one things I like the most about this book. I like the examples used by the author.However, I did find some MINOR mistakes, but the author does point that out at the beginning of the book. I think that humble statement pumps the star count to five. He does not claim to have everything figured out, nor does he claims a secret technique that promises faster learning in less time. No, he does not do so and I like that he is not pretentious about anything. He parts from the premise that one can learn more than one language at the same time. In this case: Romance Languages. This is a true fact, and I did not need a PhD.D. thesis (Which he (author) did and demonstrated that it is indeed possible), to support my opinion, since it is something that can be attested through my own experience. My mum taught me basic French since early age; I also received a bilingual education—English and Spanish—from K to 12—, since I was raised in Puerto Rico (a U.S. Territory).It is incredible how much these three languages are alike. The author uses Castilian Spanish as his reference for Spanish, which came as a nice surprise for me, since this is the one Puerto Ricans/Cubans are more familiar with, because of our common 400-year history shared with Spain. On another note, written Spanish and Portuguese are so similar that the author had to use synonyms for many words that mean the same in both languages. I figure this is a great technique to not make them so alike, and bring that monotonous aspect to a minimum. And this is good, because it builds vocabulary at the same time. However, do not expect to have this book as the one source for your learning, use dictionaries, verb books and other grammar works from each language to enrich the experience as you go along. I've taken my time with the book and have come to gain a lot.The book has many informative nuggets throughout, which, again, I like because those bits make it more fun to read. I definitely recommend this book to any person looking to begin studying the four main Romance languages, spoken by millions around the globe.Btw, if the author is reading this, write another book for Catalan (Català), Galician (Galego), Asturian (Bable), Romanian and/or other minor Romance languages like Mirandese, using Spanish as the backdrop for learning. I think doing so will incentivise people to learn more than just the four "popular" Romance languages and prevent these other languages from dying.

I bought this book immediately upon seeing it on Amazon because the concept is fresh and challenging. I'm not disappointed. The book is replete with charts, example sentences, and comparison of details, and it covers a full range of grammar topics. It doesn't completely cover pronunciation of the alphabet and markings however, only of two-letter combinations, so other resources (preferably with audio) will be needed to learn that aspect properly, which would be true anyway. I look forward to using this book in tandem with apps and other books to really speed through and devour the basics of these four languages together. This kind of consolidation is just intellectually satisfying; for best results, study Latin too!

This book is a great resource. You can read it as a book cover to cover or feel free to jump around and look up certain aspects of languages. It serves as a great desk reference. The one thing I hope the author will consider as an add-on is making an audio portion to go along with the book (or as a separate online purchase) where native speakers in each language begin by saying the entire alphabet in their language and then repeating the words throughout the book at least twice for those users who may not be familiar with one or more of the languages. This way users can hear the words for the different languages side by side to really know and understand the pronunciation differences and assist their own speaking and reading aspirations. Great book!

I learned French and Spanish years ago. Recently I tackled Italian for a trip. Then I began learning Portuguese because some family members speak it. This book is exactly what I was trying to formulate in my mind for keeping track of the similarities in these four languages! I don't know that I could learn the languages from this beautiful tome, but using it as a reference gives me many aha moments when comparing the languages. Thank you so much for writing it.

Love this book, great accomplishment, a must for every scholar of Romance languages whether you know just one or you know more. It's good for language learners too if you already know one Romance language. This may sound superficial but I like the larger type, making it easier to read, but it also may make it a little harder to see the comparisons (as in a compact chart).It's geared toward language learners, so it is not organized for linguistic purposes. I missed seeing the obvious referral to linguistic concepts, but it is easy enough to fill that in yourself.Things I would love to be in it that weren't:- a comparison of sound changes.- a comparison with Latin (in appendix showing how verb tenses, endings etc, change and rearrange)- Even though these are not common -learning- languages, it'd be easy to add in Catalan and Romanian.- a section on vocab where different- false friends, essentially the same word, but has a different meaning.- list of words that have different gender- some tables could be more compact and more comprehensive (especially the reference tables near the back- A section on sentence examples that compare 'how you say it' can be different.Not a problem with this book, but I wish there were such books for Germanic, Slavic, Indic, Dravidian, Bantu, and Chinese. Who's in charge of this? Get on it!

This is perfect for someone that started learning these languages as a small child, but got hung up on the grammar.