Madrigal's Magic Key to Spanish: A Creative and Proven Approach

by Margarita Madrigal, Andy Warhol (Illustrator)

Learn the basics of the Spanish language with this easy-to-use guide featuring original illustrations by Andy Warhol—from one of America's most prominent language teachers. Read, write, and speak Spanish in only a few short weeks! Even the most reluctant learner will be astonished at the ease and effeciveness of Margarita Madrigal’s unique method of teaching a foreign language. Completely eliminating rote memorization and painfully boring drills, Madrigal's Magic Key to Spanish is guaranteed to help you: • Learn to speak, read, and write Spanish quickly and easily • Convert English into Spanish in an instant • Start forming sentences after the very first lesson • Identify thousands of Spanish words within a few weeks of study • Travel to Spanish-speaking countries with confidence and comfort • Develop perfect pronunciation, thanks to a handy pronunciation key With original black and white illustration by Andy Warhol, Madrigal's Magic Key to Spanish will provide readers with a solid foundation upon with to build their language skills.

Genres: Spanish Literature, Language, Nonfiction, Reference, Education, Self Help, School

512 pages, Paperback

First published August 10, 1953

About the author

From Wikipedia: Margarita Madrigal (May 15, 1912 – July 23, 1983) was a Costa Rican American author and language teacher best known for the Madrigal's Magic Key to... and An Invitation to... series. During her career, she wrote 25 books covering seven languages.[1][2]

Biography
Background
Margarita Madrigal's parents met in Kansas City while her father, Ezequías Madrigal (an operatic baritone from Costa Rica) was on tour in the United States. Before he was set to perform, his accompanist became ill. When he heard that a local girl, Carolyn Wilhelm of Winchester, Kansas, was an excellent concert pianist, he communicated to her to perform with him for the evening. She initially refused, but agreed after being asked in person. "The romance went on from there," as Margarita related in an interview.[3]

Reviews

[Dave Jones · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was written during the early 1950s. This is evident by some of the vocabulary (Cuba is frequently referenced as one could still travel freely there, cables, smoking was more in fashion at the time.) It is illustrated by the simple drawings of a yet unknown Andy Warhol.

The instruction is as good today as it was in 1950. Ms. Madrigal starts out by introducing the reader to terms that we are already familiar with or can figure out without much effort (e.g. absolutamente = absolutely). At this point, she encourages the reader to creatively assemble what he/she already knows before proceeding to more advanced material. Ms. Madrigal has a gift for teaching languages (her books on French are out of print and command over $100-150). After reading this book, you will have a decent working knowledge of Spanish grammar and vocabulary.

This is a book I will probably reference frequently. It took me forever to read it because there was much to study and absorb -- but it is worth the effort. I'm looking forward to purchasing an e-book when my tablet arrives.

I recommend this book to anyone who is interested in learning to speak Spanish. This would also be good to someone who has forgotten Spanish or, like me, took Spanish in high school many years previous. (Of course we also need some type of audio instruction -- but that is beyond the scope of this review.)

This has nothing to do with the book content but ... I think the author has a great "literary" name: Margarita Madrigal. She was destined to be an author of some sort!

Follow up October 2014

I read the Kindle version of this book the second time around. While I stick by my original 5-star rating, I would discount that rating by a star for the Kindle version. Some of the formatting was truncated and most of the charts were images (meaning you couldn't add comments or use the dictionary). The Kindle app - as opposed to the device - overcame some of these shortcomings.

The book's content, however, is still outstanding. I still have a ways to go before my Spanish reading is at a workable level but my knowledge has improved and I have a sense of the areas I need to review.

One improvement I would suggest in future editions is, in addition to chapter numbers, to provide subtitles for future reverence.

Overtake, this is an excellent resource that I'm glad is a part of my Kindle library.

[Ned Powell · Rating 4 out of 5]

I started learning Spanish from scratch on DuoLingo nine months ago, diversifying with Memrise later on too, along with the Pimsleur and Michel Thomas audio courses. I didn’t feel like I had a good foundation and understanding of what was going on. I felt I needed a text book. So after a little research online, I found that this book was generally well recommended, and I ordered it from Amazon.

I worked through the book thoroughly from cover to cover, completing most of it within one week, and it really brought everything together for me. Having some exposure of the vocabulary and grammar from DuoLingo and Memrise helped me cruise through it without much difficulty (at first, I was worried it was too basic for me!)

The book did a great job in explaining what I was mostly having to intuit and memorise from DuoLingo and Memrise. It seemed to have some cross-over with the Michel Thomas course in it’s approach, guiding the reader on how to form Spanish words from English words, and generally trying to simplify things to make it as easy to understand and remember as could be done.

The information conjugating for the various tenses was very useful to me, and much needed. I’ll need more practice with the “non-conformist” verbs to cement those, as well as some of the radically changing verbs. Things for me got a little confusing with the past conjunctive, conditional, compound conjunctive and past perfect conjunctive stuff in Chapter 42, which I assume is one of the more tricky parts of the Spanish language to learn. Things were generally clear and straightforward throughout the book though.

A short-coming I noticed is that if one was learning Spanish afresh from this book, they would have little idea of how the words are pronounced as they read through. There is a pronunciation key at the beginning, but that can only help so much, and the “NOSE” rule, explaining which syllable to emphasise, isn’t explained until the last chapter. I guess this is generally a problem with text books, so I recommend listening to audio courses like Michel Thomas and Pimsleur concurrently, as well as DuoLingo and Memrise, from which you can hear the correct Spanish pronunciations and practice them yourself.

I also thought that intimate/familiar/informal form of address was covered rather late in the book. It was only described in the final chapter, along with a handful of other useful little things that I’d either had to intuit, had learnt from friends/other sources, or was unaware of. All the little things, I guess, that didn’t fit neatly in the other chapters. Also, the future tense is only touched upon briefly (pages 93-94) and not covered again in the rest of the book, unfortunately.

All-in-all, I really appreciated this book, and expect I’ll refer back to it from time-to-time to refresh myself on various aspects when needed. While I’ve never read any other Spanish text-books, I would nonetheless recommend this one.

[Lisa Steadman · Rating 5 out of 5]

The best spanish learning book I’ve found. The only book I’ve come across that I would absolutely recommend. (Though I would also recommend another called Breaking Out of Beginner Spanish for people in the more intermediate levels.)

A few things I wish were changed and both are based on the fact that this is a relatively pretty old book.

1. Updating some of the vocabulary. No one sends cables anymore.

2. Include the Tú form. The conjugations for it are literally excluded the entire book until the final chapter. Now a days the informal is used with people almost as soon as you’ve become even some what acquainted. Not exclusive to closest family and closest friends.

[Ginger · Rating 5 out of 5]

I've been through this book before and learned a lot. However, my old brain refuses to learn a new language. On the other hand, I refuse to let my brain rule over me.

The second times through this book, I became conversant for the first time. Although I was hesitant, I could carry on a bit of conversation. This time through, I'm amazed at how easy it is. Plus, I'm learning the concepts at a different level.

I've tried all sorts of methods from Power Glide, to Learnables, to Rosetta Stone and more. I've discovered that Madrigals along with reading the Book of Mormon in Spanish and translating children's books has made me move forward like none of the others did at all.

[Amy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Madrigal's classic Spanish text, although very dense reading, is still up-to-date; despite the fact that we don't send many cables anymore, we still talk about most of the same things. The chapters repeat the type of exercise with each new added skill, part of speech, or verb tense introduced, and gradually the simple sentences lead to in-depth conversations. I like that she begins with the preterite tense and introduces the present much later. It's a sensible way to get started in a language.

I'd recommend this as a supplement to other language learning efforts. It's packed with information and presented in a somewhat different way than modern language guides, so if you're feeling a bit stuck, her explanations and examples may help you to see things more clearly. And Andy Warhol's illustrations are sparse but charming!

[Amanda]

This book is amazing. Not boring at all like so many textbooks are. It's the only one I ever enjoyed reading.

[Claudio · Rating 5 out of 5]

Best grammar book I have ever seen, in any language.

Clear examples, and an interesting but effective way of grouping concepts and rules.

[Tish · Rating 5 out of 5]

It’s been over two years since I started learning Spanish but the progress was pretty slow. The journey began with Duolingo, then Skillshare and even tried Podcasts. Finally found this book. If you want to learn a language fast and effectively, books are always the best way. Paid double the original price of the book but it was totally worth it.

[Zachary Wright · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is the reason that I am basically fluent in Spanish. This method for me was flawless as I am currently living in Argentina and with a emersion this book is really quite amazing.

[Anna Lee Hall · Rating 4 out of 5]

Idk if this should count towards my reading goal or whatever, but I just wanted to give a review of it. I would highly recommend this as a primer on Spanish grammar and some vocabulary to the beginning and intermediate Spanish learner. I would advise you to get this book over any of the generic textbooks to be found in Barnes & Nobles or BAM. It strikes a really good balance between being very fun and easy to understand, and actually explaining all the essential grammar you need to know to learn Spanish without wasting much time. Something to keep in mind is that the book is a little older, so some of the exercises are a little outdated, but it doesn’t affect the important thing which is drilling grammar. The only real issue is that it doesn’t teach the tú forms until very late in the book, almost as an afterthought, because of the idea that teaching usted is easier because you conjugate it the same as the regular third person plural. This means you’ll want to learn the tú forms on your own time to supplement the book. There may be better textbooks/workbooks out there but this one was sufficient for me, especially in conjunction with taking Spanish classes.

[Ravishing_rick · Rating 4 out of 5]

A little outdated but still good

[Harry Taylor · Rating 4 out of 5]

Did I learn Spanish in a few easy weeks? No. Not bad though.

[Valia · Rating 5 out of 5]

yo iba a decir que este libro vale su peso en oro pero luego busqué el precio del oro 😳

[Kylee Villarreal · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the best if not THE best books on learning Spanish especially if you are a native English speaker trying to learn.

[Matt Lee · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book effectively taught me Spanish to the point that I feel confident getting my point across, though maybe not always in the most efficient way. From the very first lesson, it teaches you how to detect Spanish patterns and teaches you hundreds of words that you will remember. You will start looking for English words that you can convert to Spanish, and this is really the beginning of your brain adapting to language learning. From there, you will learn important conjugations for past and future tense, and then continue on to harder grammatical concepts. If you are learning through immersion (whether it be through listening, reading, or living abroad), this will give you a strong basis to guide you along and understand what you are hearing/reading. It maximizes the principle of "learning a language" as opposed to "learning about the language." Though the book lacks certain things (we'll get to that in a minute), it is extremely effective and I recommend it to absolutely everyone wanting to learn Spanish. It makes the language simple and fun.

Now onto the pitfalls. First, as others have noted, the book lacks the "tu" conjugations and the "vosotros" conjugations. As someone who has more contact with Spain than Latin America, this is a bit of a problem. It's not too bad, because learning new conjugations becomes a lot easier after you've gone through the full book.

The second negative about this book is that, if you are testing for the DELE or SIELE, you will lack some critical knowledge. For instance, I travelled to Spain last month and realized that I, embarrassingly, did not know how to express the time of day. There really aren't any Spanish idioms here, just sort of awkward dialogues that do not always reflect the way a Spaniard or Latin American would speak.

With all those negatives, this is still, without a doubt, a five star book and the most important book in your Spanish learning journey. Supplement it with listening to and reading native level content, and you will have a really fun time.

[Ellen Snyder · Rating 5 out of 5]

A great spanish self-study book and it's been around for 60 years. Wish I had known about it in high school. Starts out with the 2500 spanish words you already know and then goes into the past tense right away, as that what we talk about the most. What we've done. Author is chatty and confidence building.

[Jess · Rating 2 out of 5]

It's...okay? Very dull compared to other sources I'm using right now. It's mostly lists of cognates. The grammar explanations are nice and helpful, but unfortunately they are buried between lots of very long lists of cognates. Also, the groupings of vocab words strike me as kind of random. What does the devil have to do with fruit salad, hmmm? Where is the logic?

[Shawn Mcdowell · Rating 5 out of 5]

Magic key to Spanish

This has to be one of the best books that is on the market for learning Spanish that I have found. I have had several copies of the paperback but I would loan them out to never see them again and now with the ebook version I know that I will not have that problem again. Now it is time to brush up with my Spanish.

[Max · Rating 5 out of 5]

estoy aprendiendo la idioma por seis semanas y quierendo esto libro.
¡La explicaciones de gramática y de vocabulario no son complicado, pero son intuitivo y practical, para todos las situaciones contidianas, o a veces leer las noticias!

(*sí, yo sé que necesito practicar mas)

[Gorlami Sun · Rating 4 out of 5]

Problem that I had with this book is the missing of you-form conjugation which is sometimes confusing …

[Nikki T · Rating 3 out of 5]

I DNFed this textbook at lesson 32 (out of 45.)
While it is an absolutely wonderful resource that I believe has the potential to help people realize the similarities between English and Spanish and thusly make learning feel and become easier, I also experienced little hiccups as I was working through the chapters/lessons.
Firstly, this is an old book, and was originally published in 1951. This means that some of the words chosen and forms used can be a little antiquated.
Secondly, the lesson format gets very old VERY fast and eventually boils down to copying chunks of words from multiple lists to create the answers needed - again and again and again. It becomes quite repetitive. The "Test Your Progress" chapters were few and far in between and were the only chapters that were really engaging (the only chapters that did NOT give you the answers in lists every single time).

It's a revolutionary textbook in it's time - and I have much respect for it and Margarita Madrigal - but in truth, I feel like a beginner's time may be better spent elsewhere (with a different textbook).
At the end of the day, I cannot recommend this with consideration to how much time has passed and opened the way for more accessible and approachable learning methods available today.

I am actively looking into other Spanish textbooks, from beginner through intermediate and including advanced, and will post about other more up to date textbooks that I do recommend.

[Quinten · Rating 5 out of 5]

I studied Spanish in elementary school, years later I did a course and finally I got a hold of this book. By far one of the best ways to get going in speaking spanish. It does not just teach rows of grammar and simple sentences like in school or in most basic courses (of course they have their own function as well).

Madrigal’s key to spanish learns you a lot of basic tricks. Like every english word ending in -tion will be -cción in spanish. Or the first person conjugation of a verb, like caminar (to walk), will be camino (I walk). You only have to add the article to make a noun out of it, el camino (the walk).

With those basic kind of tricks in mind, as you are allowed to get very creative with your sentences, will make speaking Spanish thousand times as easy, and a lot more fun.

[Cam · Rating 4 out of 5]

I’m very conflicted about this book, objectively. It teaches you the fundamentals vocabulary and grammar wise pretty darn effectively and efficiently. The biggest issue with this book is they teach very outdated and super formal versions but quite literally no one you will encounter uses. Someone unaware of this will learn quite a bit of useless and impractical Spanish.
The other aspect that is a negative is the lack of exploring the nuances, explanation of rules and exceptions and a sense of native level Spanish that will really differentiate your Spanish for being practical compared to just “Booksmart”, which the latter is really only what the book offers.

[G Nye · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent book, great reference for learning Spanish. She uses what I'd call "hacks" to simplify understanding meaning and grammar in Spanish for the English speaker. So clever and Andy Warhol did the line drawn illustrations. Amazing. It's a slow read because it is a textbook for learning Spanish-expect about a year to read, learn and go on to the next chapter. It's a classic and nearly magical in the way she shows you how to learn Spanish. I go back to it from time to time.

[Terry James · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is the best book for learning Spanish. I have tried at least three times to learn Spanish, reading a variety of books, took a college course, and tried Duolingo. The Madrigal book was definitely the best for me. It is very different than other textbooks. The book shows short cuts to learning a large vocabulary easily. It starts with past tense rather than present tense like every other book. Past tense worked better.

[James Forster · Rating 4 out of 5]

Este libro es excelente! Me ayudó mucho.

It doesn’t read like a boring Spanish text book - the chapters are well structured and engaging. I would only say that it can be confusing with so much emphasis on the ‘usted’ form of speaking, as opposed to the now common informal ‘tú’.

He estado aprendiendo español por dos mes y disfruté mucho este libro - muchas gracias.

[Ibrahim · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is the book I started with and I recommend anyone new to learning Spanish to start with this book, digest, do the exercises of course, etc. and it will give you some self-confidence and help move you up to the next level. This should be our starting point. I enjoyed the book so much I wanted to read other books of hers as well.

[Kim · Rating 3 out of 5]

A different approach that has merits. It moves quickly and presents a lot at once. There is some anachronistic stuff like the frequent smoking refs, fruit cocktail, etc. but also the language has changed a bit.

[Labruja_dietra · Rating 3 out of 5]

A very good, simple resource. I learned a lot from it. But I am giving it three stars because as a busy homeschool mom, running two businesses, the exercises got to be too much for me. I am getting a simpler workbook to continue to advance my language learning.