Pictures and humor help readers build their Spanish language skills

To its millions of fans, the Pattersons are just like their own families, facing universal issues among daily concerns. Containing a selection of 100 syndicated Spanish-language versions of the strip that is widely read in Latin America, Laugh 'n' Learn Spanish provides an entertaining and effective way to expand and polish conversational skills in Spanish.

Readers learn by understanding and learning natural, everyday verbal interactions at home and about town, following John and Ell Patterson as they attempt to come to terms with middle age; daughter Elizabeth as she spreads her wings and goes off to college; son Michael dating and then marrying his childhood sweetheart, Deanna; daughter April as she rebels against discipline, anther grandpa who finds a second love in the autumn of his life. Each strip is graded by difficulty--Beginning, Moderate, or Challenging--and is accompanied by:

• Glosses that translate difficult vocabulary
• Usage notes to build proficiency
• A summarizing activity that tests comprehension
• Additional exercises for key idioms and word patterns appear at the end of each section

  The most popular, most-read comic strip in North America is now the most fun way to learn Spanish!

  Learning a language should be fun! So sit back, laugh, and learn Spanish by following the antics of the Patterson family in Lynn Johnston's hugely popular comic strip "For Better or For Worse." Now featured weekly in several Latin American Spanish-language newspapers, these cartoons will have you laughing your way through your lessons as you expand your vocabulary, comprehension, and conversational skills.

  To help you focus on the learning level with which you are most comfortable, Laugh 'n' Learn Spanish is divided into three sections: beginning, moderate, and challenging Through the comic strips and their universal themes of family values in a modern world, you'll learn how to talk in Spanish about everyday things: making demands and requests, expressing hope and plans for the future, discussing household chores, going shopping, asking for types of food, exploring relationships, and so on. The engaging storylines offer a strong incentive to keep reading and learning.

  Using laughter to break through the language barrier, Laugh 'n' Learn Spanish features:

  • Vocabulary notes that translate difficult or new Spanish vocabulary
  • Language notes that provide guidance on correct usage
  • Entertaining, picture-based review questions that test your grasp of vocabulary and commonly used structures
  • Plus the original English text for the cartoon strips, should you need to check your understanding

Johnston, Lynn

Lynn Johnston is the creator of the comic strip "For Better or For Worse," which is distributed by United Feature Syndicate. It appears in more than two-thousand newspapers worldwide, in twenty countries, and in eight languages, reaching 220 million readers every day. In the twenty-four years since it was developed, there have been thirty books of cartoons published.

Brenda Wegmann is an experienced teacher and author of ESL and Spanish-language textbooks and instructional guides; she also teaches at Edmonton Community College.

Wegmann, Brenda