Customer Reviews

Practical English Usage

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As I was preparing to take the TEFL course to teach abroad and inquiring about the different books that the school was suggesting, I was told simply by my son who is also a teacher and the statement was confirmed by both my instructors, "just buy Swan, it's the bible and it's all you need". Practical English Usage is just that. For whatever reason Michael Swan decided to write this book, we are forever grateful.

Swan's "Practical English Usage" is a staple book that should be in pretty much any resource collection. The book is arranged in sections that give brief introductions to a huge range of grammatical forms, their functions and a host of other information.

The sections are replete with examples to illustrate the point that Swan is making. The language is very accessible and I have used this book as a rescue resource for difficult questions asked by students.

Perhaps one point, as mentioned by another reviewer, is that the information on each element is not extensive. However, considering that the book weighs in at "hefty" and covers a huge range of things, this is not surprising. One could easily justify supplementing it with another grammar book or two in order to get that comprehensiveness.

However, for everyday teaching purposes, "Practical English Usage" is a mainstay and a fantastic resource.

I am not a native English speaker, and so I admit the book is a little bit advance in some level. However, it reminds me of lots of common mistake I made and how to correct it. It is a big book and not easy to read through. It is not very easy to pinpoint a particular page to read for some of my questions. Yet, I didn't regret buying it!

The book is alphabetically organised which is just so practical and easy to use. It explains things in an easy to understand English. I couldn't teach without it. Invaluable! Excellent buy!!!!

I'm a native English teacher in a non-English speaking country and Practical English Usage has quickly become my go-to resource for researching grammatical issues. Browsing this easy-to-read grammar guide has also helped to inspire new topics for my ESL lessons. Written in plain English without extensive grammatical jargon, the book is an easy read and the organization makes it simple to browse any given topic. Specific words and phrases are indexed separately, so the reader can research a broad topic like adverb particles or find a specific phrase like "find out" in the index and read about it in an article on the word "know". I imagine Practical English Usage would also be extremely useful to an advanced student of English as a foreign or second language, though the organization and diversity of topics might overwhelm intermediate students.

As a guide to practical usage rather than rules of grammar, incorrect usages that have fallen into common use are typically described as "informal" rather than "incorrect"; likewise, the grammatically correct form is typically described as "formal" or "very formal English". This may annoy militant grammarians but should please writers and teachers less inclined to attack split infinitives or sentences ending with prepositions. (Those who wish to wage war over these usages will find ample rules of engagement, however.) Practical English Usage also includes practical topics such as the truncated grammar of newspaper headlines, the standard form of a business letter and even a brief mention of mobile texting conventions.

My two minor complaints: first, the avoidance of grammar jargon in the organization of the book can take some time to adapt to. For example, you won't find "transitive verb" or "intransitive verb" in the index, but you'll find those subjects in the "verb complementation" segment and related articles. Second, as a publication of Oxford University, the book sometimes feels a need to devote rather copious explanations to sentence structures and usages that are uncommon outside of British English. The book does an excellent job of noting distinctively British and American usages; readers may even be surprised to learn which phrases they use in everyday English are peculiar to their linguistic lineage. For an American reader such as myself, however, some of the structures discussed at great length seem fairly irrelevant outside of the dominion of the British crown. Nevertheless, this book is an invaluable resource for practical English and recommended to educators, learners and writers of all types.

Excellent when reviewing texts by non-english speakers. Good for reminding one of english grammar rules.

I used an earlier edition of this book in China about fourteen years ago to learn English. Practical English Usage is written in such simple English that I was able to read and benefit from it with merely a lower-intermediate grasp of the language then. I found it encouraging as a language learner to be able to read and study the English language in English, parting with my native language for the first time. I remember that I was always able to find corresponding entries to words that I found difficult to differentiate. In short, I consider this book indispensable to learners of the English language.

The volume I used fifteen years has since followed me to Singapore and eventually to the United States. Although I, having developed proficiency in the language, no longer use the book, I still hold much respect for it. I have used quite a lot of ESL books and Swan's work easily falls into my top-three list.

I bought this book for improving my English, and now I know that the book is very good, and it is helping me to achieve. I Recommend it.

The best of all, is that amazon sent me the book to Colombia in South America, in only 15 days.

Partly because of its size and partly because of some rave reviews, I expected more. Several entries regarding points of grammar and punctuation which I sought were not there. Some more obscure concepts were dealt with, while more common ones were not.

I borrowed this book for three months from a friend and I decided to buy it. It's and exceptional book.
It explains most of the common mistakes in the English language, which helps a lot if you're a teacher or even if you just want to understand the English most confusing constructions.