Spanish Visual Dictionary

As I've mentioned in previous posts the local library is a good place to expand your learning of Spanish - and the children's section can be a great source for easy to read books in Spanish along bilingual stories that ensure your comprehension. Another reference work that I like to check out is The Firefly Spanish-English Junior Visual Dictionary. This is a pretty entertaining way to expand your vocabulary as well as your mind.

Being a visual learner (and, besides, I like the illustrations) I think this a better way for me to lock the association of an image and a word into my brain. Here are four flying friends that would be good to ID should you need to tell the front desk about a bothersome infestation "en su habitación"!

1001 Most Useful Spanish Words

A very declarative title for this post, and not really one I think I could ever make. It's actually a title for a very worn, almost tattered, book in my collection that in itself has proved useful to me. As one strives to expand one's vocabulary, one may be tempted to read a dictionary, but this can get old really fast and usually it's not presented in a context that solidifies comprehension. What I like about Seymor Resnick's little tome is that every word in it is presented in an example sentence, and many of them are just a bit dry or quirky (we're not sure if dry and quirky were Seymour's intent). A few examples:
Pecado. m. sin No es un pacado tan grave. It is not such a serious sin.
Vida f. life ¿Qué es la vida? La vida es sueño. What is life? Life is but a dream.
Asado roasted Me gustan las castañas asadas. I like roasted chestnuts.
Cuerpom. body Sacaron varios cuerpos después de la explosción. They carried out serveral bodies after the explosion.
Tirar to throw, pull No tires arena, chico. Don't throw sand, kid.

I really came upon this book in a roundabout way - I was making a purchase a few years ago on Amazon.com and was a few dollars short to qualify for free shipping - Seymour stepped in to help me with this low price keeper. And he's helping me still. ¡Muchas gracias, Seymour!