Old Grammars and Modern Usefullness

[LiamQ]

Greetings to everyone.

I've registered on these fora to ask a question which I hope some kind soul might answer for me.

More or less, someone who is new to learning a foreign language very often is pointed in the direction of any number of popular, modern courses, many of them being audio based. For those of us who have studied foreign languages for many years, and who feel comfortable beginning reading and composition before going out 'into the world' to find some kind native-speaker to bore to death, there is perhaps less internal need to begin language study with the so-called 'easy' methods of audio acquisition. I, for example, enjoy reading grammars and finding what I consider to be a logical presentation of material; and, moreover, for me it is relatively worthwhile to internalise grammar before polishing speaking skills, and I am able to internalise it with normal effort.

I have found that, today, there are not many sources that are available which are as comprehensive as those published some decades ago. (As an example: the Colloquial series, and its ever diminishing vocabulary since the 1960's.) For a person such as I, this can be very frustrating, for language learning has grown more and more to cater to those who feel they cannot possibly learn a language unless it is entertainment and unless they are assured that it is easy to do such a thing, and that they can even do it in 15 minutes a day.

Because of my (strong) opinions on this matter, I have recently come to read more and more old grammars to brush up on some of my languages; and I have come to wonder whether or not they would be useful, to the modern person, to learn a language from even as a beginner.

Since I have finally given in to the beauty of Spanish, I thought that I would try to find materials to begin my methods of language learning, and I found what a feel to be a very good, basic book. It was written by Aurelio Espinosa and Clifford G. Allen, and it is called Elementary Spanish Grammar. It is very old, and dates to the first decade of the twentieth century.

Forgive me for ranting for so long, but finally, I have written enough to now ask something: what do the members of these fora think about general idea of acquiring a foreign language from a source as old as the one I mentioned? Do you think that the Spanish language has evolved over the past one hundred years to the point that such an old grammar would present constructs which are widely obsolete? Can you think of any modern Spanish books which provide a) very, very good grammatical training and presentation, and b) a vocabulary of approximately 2,000 of the highest frequency words?

If you have read this far, I thank you for devoting a bit of your time to these rather silly questions, and I hope you can help me find a solution.