Books are some of the most valuable tools for learning Spanish. They don’t need a monthly subscription and don’t expire. Plus—they’re in-depth and have been trusted for decades.
This post is a compilation from our language learners here at FluentU of our personal recommendations for the 17 best books to learn Spanish this year.
Opting to use digital versions of books? Take full advantage of the benefits that go along with your virtual copy. Some include accompanying activities to supplement your reading and learning experience.
Contents
If you like getting your information from videos, check out our video round-up of excellent books to learn Spanish for even more resources!
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This edition of the “Practice Makes Perfect” series is a 350-page workbook covering the most important Spanish grammar rules.
There are clear explanations, many realistic examples and free online audio recordings to practice your listening skills.
The good thing about this book is that it offers various exercises for different learning styles, like multiple-choice questions, fill-in-the-blank games and creative writing exercises.
Plus, the structure is easy to follow.
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This book covers intermediate to advanced Spanish grammar in an easy, progressive manner.
You’ll start with a review of the basics before diving into the grammar rules needed for confident communication.
Lessons cover important Spanish grammar topics like complex verb tenses, parts of speech, sentence structure and more.
And along the way, you’ll learn plenty of vocabulary you’ll use in real conversation.
Before choosing this book, make sure you’ve reached an intermediate Spanish level. Otherwise, you may get a bit overwhelmed by the content and exercises, as they’re quite detailed and extensive.
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This is kind of the 2.0 version of the previous “Practice Makes Perfect” book.
It goes into the intricate details of Spanish and is aimed at intermediate to advanced students.
It features many practical exercises to help you communicate more naturally.
This breaks free from the ready-to-use sentences found in other books and encourages you to create more sophisticated phrases as you go along.
If you already have a good grasp of Spanish and want to go beyond the fundamental principles, this book is a great option!
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This book is a bilingual picture dictionary where every term is illustrated with contextual drawings (it’s pretty handy, believe me!).
It’s organized into 12 themed units that cover various aspects of life like people, housing, food, recreation and more.
The dictionary features stories, role plays, clear visual descriptions of words and dialogues to help you learn new vocabulary quickly.
It’s not a classic dictionary—you can easily read a page per day and get a lot out of it.
Plus, it’s all visual, so it’ll take you three to five minutes!
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This book teaches level-one Spanish vocabulary through pictures using two specific techniques.
First, it uses the word and picture method. Each new word or sentence is accompanied by a line drawing that instantly explains its meaning.
Second, the ready-made vocabulary presents you with everyday Spanish words and phrases that look and sound like their English equivalents to ease you into conversational Spanish faster.
These two methods pack a powerful punch, and the book gives you the vocabulary to express yourself quickly and meaningfully in Spanish.
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This book teaches you the most frequently-used 2,000 Spanish words, allowing you to understand the majority of words used in everyday conversations quickly.
Every word comes with example sentences showing how to use it in conversation—a feature that will likely be the most useful.
The format of this book is very simple, making it easy to read and understand.
Finally, it’ll set a foundation for your Spanish vocabulary before you move on to more advanced terms and phrases.
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This book helps you develop a confident and spontaneous speaking style by training you with real-world examples and engaging exercises.
It’s organized into 12 units that present realistic conversational situations like making introductions, giving opinions, going on a date or telling a story.
Each chapter starts with a dialogue, followed by various exercises to put what you learned into practice.
And even better, it contains clear instructions on correct pronunciation, syntax, word usage and how to employ conversation-ready phrases.
An English-to-Spanish and Spanish-to-English glossary is also included to help you along.
It’s important to note that this book is intended for intermediate learners.
However, you might benefit if you’re just a beginner up for a challenge—or an advanced learner with lagging speaking skills (which is quite common).
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Living Language is a huge multimedia Spanish program that contains three books (beginner, intermediate and advanced) and nine CDs (three for each level).
It’s well organized with topic-based chapters (instead of lesson-based chapters like in most courses), and the goal is to teach you conversational Spanish more than anything else.
The CDs work together with the books—they’re the main feature of the course, rather than just a gimmick (as is the case with some products).
They’re high-quality, clear and well-modulated recordings with the speaking rate set at a learner-appropriate speed.
As you progress through the chapters and CDs, things start to pick up.
You’ll learn new words, sentence structures and conjugations in each chapter.
And here’s the icing on the cake—it’s pretty darn barato (cheap) for the amount of material you’ll be getting.
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The book consists of 12 units, each focusing on a specific situation (formal or informal).
They include themes such as school, home, social media and business. Each unit’s key phrases are compiled at the end, forming an accessible, quick-access glossary.
Of course, when learning conversation, you’ll need to do more than memorize sentences. The book also provides quick grammar and verb lessons to help you break down the phrases.
Plus, they provide plenty of example sentences to illustrate points.
This book can make a great resource that gets you comfortable with the essentials and expectations of Spanish conversation. It can work well as a stand-alone reference or a supplement to any other learning books you use.
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Short stories are an incredibly fun way to get reading practice, and this book features 20 bite-sized ones that make Spanish studies less like a chore.
Every story in the book is formatted to teach you specific Spanish language concepts.
Summaries are provided in Spanish and English to give the basic plots, and a glossary and questionnaires come at the end to help you review and practice what you’ve learned.
Although the title states that the book is for beginners, it may be more suitable for intermediate learners. The Spanish used in some stories can be challenging, so the book may not be the best first choice for true novices.
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This reader tells a detective story taking place in Buenos Aires.
It features many short chapters written with simple grammar, vocabulary and sentences so that everything stays easy to read.
You’ll learn lots of useful vocabulary about different topics (like greetings, talking to friends and strangers, etc.).
Read one chapter per day and you should improve ¡muy rápido! (very quickly!)
If you’re bored studying isolated sentences in Spanish, this book is busy calling you. Put all your known Spanish vocabulary into a natural context, and pick up new words through the surrounding context.
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This mystery story contains more advanced Spanish that requires you to be able to read longer passages and comprehend more complex sentence structures.
It’ll challenge the more advanced reader but still be simple enough to understand the story.
While more difficult, this book still has shorter chapters that make it easy to fit reading Spanish into your daily routine without being too time-consuming.
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Think of this book as the first guide to pick up before considering other self-study Spanish books. When you aren’t sure which Spanish learning resources are the best, start here.
It lays out the pros and cons of top Spanish learning resources, such as dictionaries and self-study books, to name a few. It provides a comprehensive collection of thoughtful reviews so you can select the resources that will work best for your needs.
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Highly recommended, the “Practice Makes Perfect” series holds arguably the best self-study Spanish workbooks out there.
These workbooks have really clear explanations while still including important grammatical details that often get simplified in other resources. After each topic is introduced, there are plenty of practice exercises with solutions in the back.
In the grammar/verb-focused workbooks, the creators did a fantastic job of gradually teaching and integrating vocabulary, while keeping the focus on the grammatical topic at hand. A handy glossary and verb tables are also found in the back of the workbooks.
Workbooks available in this series include: Basic Spanish, Spanish Pronouns and Prepositions, Spanish Verb Tenses, Complete Spanish Grammar and Spanish Vocabulary.
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Whether you want to learn about different varieties of wine and how to identify them, how to operate your new computer software or, in this case, about the Spanish language, the “For Dummies” series is here to help.
These books are ideal to be used as a supplement to the main textbooks you are studying. The short chapters, helpful tips sections and easy-to-navigate index intermingle to provide a stress-free learning experience.
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Do you dread the idea of memorization exercises and drills? Then, you will benefit from “Madrigal’s Magic Key to Spanish,” as it eliminates the need for such exercises.
Some of the rave reviews of the book state that its format and presentation are unbeatable and that it helps clarify often-murky Spanish topics and teaches in a fun way.
A great aspect of this book, Madrigal highlights how many Spanish words English speakers already know and demonstrates a few rules on how to “Spanishify” them. As much as this seems like an obscure method, she provides extensive examples throughout the guide and exercises to practice and master this approach.
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Marcial Prado packed the pages of this book full of useful information for Spanish self-study. It takes the concept of a traditional phrasebook and merges it with grammar and vocabulary lessons, along with corresponding activities to ensure readers grasped the concepts. This book has been said to be so comprehensive, that it could be the base of a Spanish study program.
So, there you have them!
It can be tricky to improve your Spanish skills if you don’t have anybody to speak with daily. However, with the right tools (and some of these books!), you can still gain the knowledge and confidence you need to hold conversations.
FluentU is an example of a tool that can boost your Spanish skills from home. The language learning program exposes you to Spanish as native speakers really use it, through movie clips, inspirational talks, music videos and more. Tools accompany these clips to enhance your learning, like interactive subtitles and personalized quizzes.
So, pick some Spanish learning books from our list or find your own picks, and use the advice in this article to get the most out of each title.
Don’t be afraid to branch out and read books written in Spanish that aren’t specifically for learners to broaden their horizons, either.
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