Spanish for Cruisers: Book Review

Created by doina. Last modified on 2007-12-06 14:19:41
Topic: Books,Charts and DVDs
Countries: Argentina, Canary Islands, Chile, Colombia, Cuba, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Galapagos, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua, Puerto Rico, Spain, Uruguay, Venezuela

Spanish for Cruisers

By Kathy Parsons

Aventuras Publishing Company

Halletsville, Texas 77964

www.forcruisers.com

ISBN 0-9675905-0-7

$24.95

English may be now regarded as a universal language but there are still many places in the world where English is not spoken and where even a smattering of the local language will be greatly appreciated. Kathy Parsons, who has travelled extensively in Latin America and speaks Spanish impeccably, has written and published an excellent book aimed at cruising sailors. Rather than produce the usual standard phrase book for tourists, the author has considerably widened its scope by dealing with every single situation which may confront a sailor visiting a Spanish speaking country. Thus there are separate chapters on emergencies, engine parts and repair, electrical and general hardware, electronics, sails and general troubleshooting. There is even an extremely useful chapter entitled “talking to mechanics”. The book not only lists every conceivable phrase but also gives the pronunciation in its English transliteration. Maybe it should have also listed some “juicier” expressions to be used in case of a botched job which is not that unusual and cannot be put down simply to having been “lost in translation”. All in all, this is an excellent book and even this reviewer, who speaks passable Spanish (including those very useful “juicier” expressions), would not leave home without it.