3,000 Spanish Words

Smart Spanish for Tontos Americanos is a replica of the Streetwise Spanish Survival Guide. WHY? you may ask.  We don’t know for sure because it wasn’t our idea. It may have something to do with the fact that the publisher has never paid us a cent in royalties and obviously doesn’t intend to. He probably thought he would disguise our book as something else, although you will notice that the authors’ names continue to appear on the cover.

It first cameo out with what he evidently thought was the clever title of Smart Spanish for Tontos Americanos, which of course backfired spectacularly — who enjoys being called stupid? (Older readers will recall popular comic books and movies of yore featuring the Lone Ranger and his Indian sidekick Tonto, whose name in Spanish versions south of the border was changed to Toro, since tonto means stupid.) People nevertheless bought the book, but let it be known in their reviews on Amazon what they thought of that amazingly offensive title.

As a result, the book suddenly lost that title and went from offensivre to the cryptic  3000.