My book is now available for pre-order!

My book about Spanish linguistics, ¿Por qué? 101 Questions about Spanish, is now available for pre-order from Amazon.com.

For more information, here is a flyer that includes an outline with a list of the 101 questions.

From the back cover:

¿Por qué? 101 Questions about Spanish is for anyone who wants to understand how Spanish really works. Standard textbooks and grammars describe the “what” of Spanish – its vocabulary, grammar, spelling, and pronunciation – but ¿Por qué? explains the “why”.

Judy Hochberg draws on linguistic principles, Hispanic culture, and language history to answer questions such as:

  • Why are so many Spanish verbs irregular? • Why does Spanish have different ways to say “you”? • Why is h silent? • Why doesn’t Spanish use apostrophes? • Why does Castilian Spanish have the th sound?

Packed with information, guidance, and links to further research, ¿Por qué? is an accessible study guide that is suitable for Spanish students, instructors, native speakers, and the general reader. It is a valuable supplementary text for serious student of Spanish at all levels, from beginning to advanced. ¿Por qué? also covers topics usually left to specialized books, including the evolution of Spanish, how children and adults learn Spanish, and the status of languages that co-exist with Spanish, from Catalan to Spanish sign language to the indigenous languages of Latin America.

Judy Hochberg has a PhD in linguistics from Stanford University, and teaches Spanish at Fordham University, New York.

7 thoughts on “My book is now available for pre-order!

  1. Michael

    Delighted to learn about this book. Can we expect that there will be a digital edition? On Amazon these editions usually have a sample of the content as well.
    If a digital edition is not forthcoming would you consider sharing a small portion of the content in this blog so that we could get a feel for the book?
    Thank you.

    Reply
    1. jhochberg Post author

      Michael: Yes, there will be a digital edition. If a sample is standard on Amazon then I assume Bloomsbury will make one available. On Bloomsbury’s website I see Google previews (aka samples) for the electronics editions of linguistics titles such as “Studies in Systemic Phonology” and “Into the Mother Tongue”.

      To help you get a feel for the book, I’ve added above (in the text of this blog post) a link to an outline that includes a listing of the 101 questions. For anyone who knows Spanish this will make it very clear what kind of book I have written. The book’s style is similar to what’s on this blog: technical but friendly (not quite as breezy, but still a bit casual).

      Please note that the heart of the book is the second part, “Inside Spanish”. It has most of the “why” questions. For each question I try to combine synchronic, diachronic, and cross-linguistic explanations. IMHO it is this combination, along with the selection of really interesting questions, that makes the book special.

      Reply
  2. Jon Aske

    I’m looking forward to taking a look at your book. I have recently made available a Spanish linguistics textbook myself. I have published it as an open textbook. It’s free if anybody wants to check it out. It’s pretty much complete, though I am still making minor changes. It should be fully finished by summer. It is available on PDF and it can be downloaded from this site: lrc.salemstate.edu/aske/cognates

    Reply

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