Earlier this evening I was reading a book to my five year old son as I do almost nightly. He and his brother are blessed to have a large collection of children’s books, many of them they have not read yet. A significant portion were given to them by a family friend who is a former school teacher who natively speaks Spanish and English. Most of the books are in English but a few are in Spanish. I’ve looked at a few of the Spanish books before but for the most part I am not far enough along in my studies to read them. I’m very much in a beginner with Spanish and I just don’t know enough words yet.

But tonight I found a book in their collection that is perfect for me! It is The Usborne First Thousand Words in Spanish by Heather Amery & Stephen Cartwright. On each page is a theme with a large illustration showing various objects related to the theme, and then along the outside of the large illustration are pictures of the individual objects in the illustration and the name of the object in Spanish. There are no English words on these pages until you get to the word list at the end of the book, which provides English translations for the Spanish words if you need them.

For example, the theme of the first page is “La casa” (trans.: the house). The large illustration in the middle shows a bathroom, a bedroom, a living room, and the front door. The illustration also contains objects you would normally find in those places. These same objects are shown around the illustration. Objects like “la esponja” (the sponge), “la toalla” (the towel), “las escaleras” (the stairs), and “el cepillo” (the brush).

Of course, this is not a book that I could base all of my Spanish study around. It will not build any grammar skills. Heck, only one page seems to contain any verbs at all. But this is very useful for a beginner like me to build up vocabulary for everyday objects.

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