Mosaicos: Spanish as a World Language Book

I bought this book in March 2002 with the ambition of teaching myself elementary spanish. But I did not make it past Chapter 5. Numerous attempts over the next 7 years failed to even make it that far. Not that the book is bad or uninspiring. On the contrary the book is quite nicely written and very efficient in how the information is densely organized in 21 chapters over 170 small pages. However, as with any teach-yourself effort a certain sense of momentum and dedication is necessary to learn the content of this book. Now, at the end a 10 day long effort over my daily commute hours, I feel empowered with the confidence to indulge in some elementary tourist style conversations.

The book has its shortcomings, the biggest being that it does not tell you how to describe events in past tense.