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valkyriejmu's review
informative
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
4.75
Slightly dated (2013 and I've probably had the Kindle version about that long before I started reading it in earnest late last year), but for a few typos near the end, it was thoroughly enjoyable. If you're struggling with learning Spanish, this book remains a big help.
andipants's review against another edition
DNF at page 35. I was really looking forward to this after a friend mentioned it, and I'm very disappointed to have to put it down, but I honestly don't think it's going to be worth the read. If I'm reading non-fiction, I have to be able to trust that the authors know what they're talking about; I understand the occasional typo or mistaken detail, but big mistakes or even consistent small ones erode that trust. I'm not interested in double-checking every single thing in the book, but at this point, I'd feel like I had to.
My Spanish is conversational though not fluent, and in just the first few chapters, I'm noticing consistent sloppy mistakes in the Spanish examples; heck, in the pronunciation guide at the very beginning (p. xii), they claim 'ñ' is pronounced like the 'ng' of "sing", which is just blatantly wrong — in what Spanish dialect is "niño" pronouned "ningo", please? And these mistakes aren't limited to the Spanish; on page 25, they claim that the English "brother" is derived from Classical Latin's "frater"; they may share a PIE root, but "brother" is firmly Germanic in origin.
The passage illustrating the establishment of SVO word-order features clumsy Spanish that actually obscures the point being made; the example sentence in Latin is "Marcus patri librum dat," which they translate as "Marcus is giving his father the book." This morphs into Vulgar Latin as "Marcus dat librum ad patrem," which they argue would have been pronounced something like "Marcu' dat libru' a' patre'." And then they finish with, "Notice how close the Vulgar Latin is to modern Spanish: Marcus está dando un libro a su padre (Marcus is giving a book to his father)." To begin with, this Spanish isn't even correct; it should be "Marcus le está..." — but even so, the given Latin example (just like Spanish) could also be translated as "Marcus gives his father the book." The better Spanish translation for the equivalent Latin phrase would be "Marcus le da el libro al padre." Which the careful reader will notice is actually much closer to the Vulgar Latin example.
And even the high-level concepts seem shaky at times. Their description of how Classical Latin morphed into Vulgar Latin was very superficial and seemed ignorant of the actual mechanics of language change (if languages with case endings are somehow too difficult for most people to learn and only used by the literate and educated, how have Russian and German toddlers and peasants managed through the centuries?).
The last straw for me was this gem from page 34: "The way a language is conceived tends to mirror the way the law of its speakers is organized. English-speaking countries use common-law, a system based on customs, canon law, parliamentary writs, and royal decree. Common law does not proceed from a code or from principles, and English itself is a disorganized tongue that follows no code." That is such arrant pop-linguistic bullshit, I about threw the book across the room. Historically, linguistically, it doesn't even make enough sense to debunk.
Hard pass.
My Spanish is conversational though not fluent, and in just the first few chapters, I'm noticing consistent sloppy mistakes in the Spanish examples; heck, in the pronunciation guide at the very beginning (p. xii), they claim 'ñ' is pronounced like the 'ng' of "sing", which is just blatantly wrong — in what Spanish dialect is "niño" pronouned "ningo", please? And these mistakes aren't limited to the Spanish; on page 25, they claim that the English "brother" is derived from Classical Latin's "frater"; they may share a PIE root, but "brother" is firmly Germanic in origin.
The passage illustrating the establishment of SVO word-order features clumsy Spanish that actually obscures the point being made; the example sentence in Latin is "Marcus patri librum dat," which they translate as "Marcus is giving his father the book." This morphs into Vulgar Latin as "Marcus dat librum ad patrem," which they argue would have been pronounced something like "Marcu' dat libru' a' patre'." And then they finish with, "Notice how close the Vulgar Latin is to modern Spanish: Marcus está dando un libro a su padre (Marcus is giving a book to his father)." To begin with, this Spanish isn't even correct; it should be "Marcus le está..." — but even so, the given Latin example (just like Spanish) could also be translated as "Marcus gives his father the book." The better Spanish translation for the equivalent Latin phrase would be "Marcus le da el libro al padre." Which the careful reader will notice is actually much closer to the Vulgar Latin example.
And even the high-level concepts seem shaky at times. Their description of how Classical Latin morphed into Vulgar Latin was very superficial and seemed ignorant of the actual mechanics of language change (if languages with case endings are somehow too difficult for most people to learn and only used by the literate and educated, how have Russian and German toddlers and peasants managed through the centuries?).
The last straw for me was this gem from page 34: "The way a language is conceived tends to mirror the way the law of its speakers is organized. English-speaking countries use common-law, a system based on customs, canon law, parliamentary writs, and royal decree. Common law does not proceed from a code or from principles, and English itself is a disorganized tongue that follows no code." That is such arrant pop-linguistic bullshit, I about threw the book across the room. Historically, linguistically, it doesn't even make enough sense to debunk.
Hard pass.
author_d_r_oestreicher's review against another edition
4.0
By right Spanish should have the supreme language position that French desperately wanted and English got some how by default. In what might be a morality tale of too much control, this book traces Spanish from a small corner of Europe to global dissemination and back.
But language is dynamic, and this story is not over.
For more see: http://1book42day.blogspot.com/2009/09/look-me-in-eye-by-john-elder-robinson.html
But language is dynamic, and this story is not over.
For more see: http://1book42day.blogspot.com/2009/09/look-me-in-eye-by-john-elder-robinson.html
emmakyzar's review against another edition
Although not linguistically thorough, this book was a fun overview of how the Spanish language has evolved since the Roman occupation of Iberia.
mbondlamberty's review
3.0
This book has a lot depending on what you are looking for - I was looking for a history of Spanish and the beginning gave me that with a lot of added insights.
Once we moved to the Americas and the US impact on the language I didn't enjoy it so much. Perhaps because I was familiar with part of it already, not sure.
Still might buy it for my mother (checked this one out from the library and did learn some things that I had missed (who knew the Real Academia had replaced 'y' (i griega) with 'ye' or 'u' with 'uve'
Once we moved to the Americas and the US impact on the language I didn't enjoy it so much. Perhaps because I was familiar with part of it already, not sure.
Still might buy it for my mother (checked this one out from the library and did learn some things that I had missed (who knew the Real Academia had replaced 'y' (i griega) with 'ye' or 'u' with 'uve'
stevia333k's review against another edition
5.0
it felt like a PBS special and it was lovely. However, I loved conlangs when I was reading the beginning of the book so it took me about a year to get past that part of the book. it was published like 3 years ago, so the parts about the Brazil Olympics & soccer cup are like "woah, it's taken me this long to read this!" I loved it. I kind of grew up trying to get through this book. The ending felt anti-climatic but considering the how a major party candidate in the 2016 election for POTUS, it's really just the calm before the storm. I can live with this. Reading the last few chapters gave me insight into why Hispanic populations are terrified by Trump's presence.
betiana's review against another edition
Very interesting information about how the language has changed over the centuries.