Product Description

• invaluable for students on university and teacher-training courses
• checks your knowledge of how English is actually used in speech and writing
• shows how grammar differs in different contexts of registers
• provides practice with relationships between grammar and vocabulary
• all examples taken from naturally occurring English texts and conversations
• comparisons between British English and American English
• spoken and written extracts throughout
• full answer key

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #63533 in Books
• Published on: 2002-10-31
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 128 pages

About the Author

Douglas Biber is Professor of Applied Linguistics (English Department) at Northern Arizona University.  His books and articles deal with language use in spoken and written discourse.

Customer Reviews

Five star approach to real grammar
This book really is a gem given its size and the amount of grammar it covers. It is invaluable for answering all of the difficult questions TESOL teachers may face, e.g. phrasal verbs, modality and compound nouns etc. It also explains why written and spoken grammars are so different, and should be treated as so. All of the examples used are from a corpus of real language. I have used it both in my undergraduate and now post-graduate work. It is simply the best.

The nitty-gritty of English usage
An invaluable reference book if you want to get right down to the real nitty-gritty of grammatical usage. Detailed and extensive, descriptive rather than prescriptive, and corpus-based, this is a grammar for the C21st.

Longman Student Grammar - Could Be Longer
Very useful revision book for students and professionals who need to understand how the English language works. There are answers included so you can check your progress. My only criticism would be that the book is quite slim - I did not feel that I had properly consolidated a topic before moving onto the next one. More please. This book offers practical exercises as a companion book to The Longman Student's Grammar of Spoken and Written English (Grammar Practice). It is recommended for advance study by the Open University for a level 3 course E303 'English Grammar in Context'. This course provides you with a really good CD-Rom with extensive practical exercises. Perhaps Longman's could consider offering such a CD-Rom as an additional learning aid. I found this hyper link to a grammar DVD but I have not seen it. English Grammar: Sentence Structure [2004] (REGION 1) (NTSC). Also these CD-Roms might be useful English Grammar In Use with Answers and CD ROM Klett Edition: A Self-study Reference and Practice Book for Intermediate Students of English,Macmillan English Grammar in Context Intermediate with Key and CD-ROM Pack,Advanced Grammar in Use With CD ROM.