Learn Spanish with Tomísimo! » Books http://www.tomisimo.org All about learning Spanish and English and the Tomísimo bilingual dictionary Thu, 12 Feb 2009 04:59:11 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.3 en hourly 1 Free books in English and Spanish http://www.tomisimo.org/blog/2007/books/free-books-in-english-and-spanish/ http://www.tomisimo.org/blog/2007/books/free-books-in-english-and-spanish/#comments Wed, 06 Jun 2007 21:13:09 +0000 David http://www.tomisimo.org/blog/2007/books/free-books-in-english-and-spanish/

“Beware of he who would deny you access to information, for in his heart he dreams himself your master.” –Pravin Lal

There are several places on the internet where you can find the full text to many different (mostly public domain) books in English and some in Spanish. If you like to read, go ahead and browse through the following list of the best places to find free books and texts on the net.

Project Gutenberg

This is a volunteer project to digitize, archive and distribute public domain books and writings. You can download the books as text files, or in several other formats. To find books, you can use the advanced search, where you can search by author, subject, title, language etc. Here’s a list of all the books they have in Spanish– over a 150. You can find famous novels such as Don Quijote and Don Juan Tenorio, and Doña Perfecta.

Universal Library

This is a project at Carnegie Mellon University which hopes to built a free-to-read, searchable electronic library of one million books. You can search right from the home page, or you can browse the collection. It’s not nearly as easy to use as the Gutenberg Project, but I recognize a few titles and authors.

Wikibooks

Wikibooks is similar to Wikipedia, but the goal is to write textbooks on every conceivable subject. There are many useful textbooks available, but note that this is not the place to find old public domain texts– These are new open-source books. You can also browse the Spanish version where you’ll probably find something you’d like to read. Note that many of the books are incomplete.

The European Library

This is a consortium of the national libraries of many European countries. When you do a search, select “online books and images” and the results will be books that you can read online and download. You can search by keyword, title, author etc. Try a search for “español” and then click the “See Online” button for any of the results.

]]> http://www.tomisimo.org/blog/2007/books/free-books-in-english-and-spanish/feed/ 4 There is a goldmine of free Spanish-learning material in your local library http://www.tomisimo.org/blog/2007/language-learning/there-is-a-goldmine-of-free-spanish-learning-material-in-your-local-library/ http://www.tomisimo.org/blog/2007/language-learning/there-is-a-goldmine-of-free-spanish-learning-material-in-your-local-library/#comments Sat, 03 Mar 2007 18:32:29 +0000 David http://www.tomisimo.org/blog/2007/language-learning/there-is-a-goldmine-of-free-spanish-learning-material-in-your-local-library/ Books on the shelfWe all like free right? So instead of dropping your hard-earned cash on a pricey Spanish course, try out these free resources. Your library might not have all of these materials, but if you look, they are sure to have some of them. If you live in an area with a lot of Spanish-speaking people, your library should have lots of material. So just look through the list and head on down to the library.

Material in Spanish for you to practice your Spanish with


You can use books and other materials written in Spanish to practice, to read, to enjoy etc.

  • Books (Modern novels, Classical literature, Short stories, Non-fiction)
  • Movies/DVDs
  • Comic books
  • Magazines
  • Music CDs/Tapes

Spanish-learning material

Some libraries have Spanish coursebooks, textbooks, and workbooks. I once used an old set of tapes (an old government Spanish course from the ’50s) that I checked out to learn Spanish. Believe it or not, it was very helpful.

  • Grammar books
  • Phrasebooks
  • Full-fledged Spanish courses on DVD/CD/VHS

Other material you can use

  • Spanish language newspaper/classified ads
  • Spanish language pamphlets for different local government programs

Get creative with this material. If you can find a Spanish-language newspaper in your area (and it’s probably free to boot), consider yourself blessed. Read it. Look up the unknown words in a dictionary. Practice using sentences as templates for you to use.

]]> http://www.tomisimo.org/blog/2007/language-learning/there-is-a-goldmine-of-free-spanish-learning-material-in-your-local-library/feed/ 4 Books on raising bilingual children http://www.tomisimo.org/blog/2007/bilingualism/books-on-raising-bilingual-children/ http://www.tomisimo.org/blog/2007/bilingualism/books-on-raising-bilingual-children/#comments Mon, 26 Feb 2007 14:02:52 +0000 David http://www.tomisimo.org/blog/2007/bilingualism/books-on-raising-bilingual-children/ Books on raising bilingual childrenAfter posting a couple of days ago about my daughter’s bilingual escapades, I thought I’d share some of the material I’ve read in my quest to learn about raising bilingual children.

I’ve been researching and looking for materials to help with raising our daughter bilingual in Spanish and English. If any of you are doing– or planning to do something similar, these books have helped us and they just might help you. Each book has the title, author and ISBN so you can easily find them or order them through your local bookstore. I’ve also put a link to buy them via Amazon, if you’re into that. Added benefit– you’re supporting Tomisimo if you buy them through the link to Amazon.

Raising Multilingual Children: Foreign Language Acquisition and Children
Author: Tracey Tokuhama-Espinosa
Publisher/Year: Bergin & Garvey, 2000
ISBN-10: 0897897501
ISBN-13: 978-0897897501
This is an up-to-date book written by a English/Spanish bilingual teacher. A rich resource with methods for achieving the best results when trying to raise bilingual children, either through language learning or language acquisition.
Buy/View on Amazon.com

A Parents’ and Teachers’ Guide to Bilingualism 2nd Edition
Author: Colin Baker
Publisher/Year: Multilingual Matters, 2000
ISBN-10: 1853594555
ISBN-13: 978-1853594557
A very useful book. Formatted as a QandA, where people have sent in questions and the author answers them. Lots of practical questions and answers including the topic of language mixing and code switching where your child switches back and forth between languages, or mixes the two together.
Buy/View on Amazon.com

Encyclopedia of Bilingualism and Bilingual Education
Authors/Editors: Colin Baker and Sylvia Prys Jones
Publisher/Year: Multilingual Matters, 1998
ISBN-10: 1853593621
ISBN-13: 978-1853593628
This is a *huge* book, an encyclopedia in fact. It’s really expensive, but if you’re interested in the subject it’s literally a treasure trove of information. You might try to find it in a local university library in the linguistics section if you don’t want to fork over the moolah.
Buy/View on Amazon.com

The Bilingual Family
Authors: Edith Harding and Philip Riley
Publisher/Year: Cambridge University Press, 1986
ISBN-10: 0521311942
ISBN-13: 978-0521311946
This book is interesting because it has a number of case studies of families who raised children bilingually in an array of different languages. It’s sort of a “yes you can do it” by giving examples of other who have done it.
Buy/View on Amazon.com

Growing Up with Two Languages: A Practical Guide
Authors: Una Cunningham-Andersson and Staffan Andersson
Publisher/Year: Routledge, 1999
ISBN-10: 041521257X
ISBN-13: 978-0415212571
This is a personal account of a Swedish family with four children who grew up speaking English and Swedish, but includes some information from other families who have raised their children bilingually.
Buy/View on Amazon.com

One Child, Two Languages: A Guide for Preschool Educators of Children Learning English As a Second Language
Author: Patton O. Tabors
Publisher/Year: Brookes Publishing Company, 1997
ISBN-10: 155766272X
ISBN-13: 978-1557662729
While primarily targeted at educators in bilingual classrooms, it is an interesting read and offers many resources for parents who desire to raise bilingual children.
Buy/View on Amazon.com

Of course these are just a few of many, many great books on the subject, but they are a few I have read, looked at or own. I hope they help you as much as they’ve helped me.

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