According to the very latest estimates (2004), Spanish is the native tongue of well over 350 million people, 100 million of whom live in Mexico and 24 million in the USA. It is therefore a major world language, the fourth largest in terms of speakers. Its study thus offers all students a meaningful and attractive prospect of establishing contact with a very wide range of Spanish speakers coming from numerous countries. Any student of Spanish will benefit, both personally and culturally, from communication with such a vast array of people bound together by a common language. Spanish as a mother tongue unites countries as far apart as New York or London are from Pekin, but distance does not necessarily entail intractable difference. Surprising as it may seem, it is often as easy for an English-speaking student of Spanish to understand the Spanish of Mexico, Argentina, Colombia, Peru or Ecuador as it is for an English or American person to understand the language of some parts of Scotland, for instance, or for a Spanish speaker to understand the language of some regions of Andalucía.

Any learner of Spanish will need, certainly in the early stages of contact with the language, a grammar book which assists her/him through the initial maze. Such a volume needs to appeal both to the beginner and to the student who has acquired some basic knowledge.