English grammar book or course

[margaritasbythesea]

Please may I have your recommendations? I need something which will help me explain grammar issues to a friend who is learning English. I spend a lot of time thinking things through in order to answer her questions, in fact more time than I actually have to devote to it.

She does have her own, but she has several and confuses herself like crazy comparing one to another, and then passes the problem on to me, which then drives me crazy. Then when I come up with an answer, she wants verifiacation from a book.

Help!

Bump.

I bought dd1 who is year 5 a Carol Vorderman book on English and it seems to explain most things she is learning at school. It's kind of an interesting read too - or maybe I'm just odd?

www.amazon.co.uk/Help-Your-English-Step-Step/dp/1409314944/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=carol+vorderman+english+made+easy&tag=mumsnetforum-21&ie=UTF8&qid=1527413112&sr=8-1

You might get moreresponses on this thread if you post in somewhere like primary school education or chat.

Thanks for the recommendations! I will repost again later.

I’d like a simple guide that explains your/ you’re been/being of/have fewer/less type mistakes. One of my dc you’d have a nosebleed if you knew her age and what graduate job she’s about to start constantly slips up 🙄

I recently took a course to teach english as a second language, this was the recommended book.

Thanks for the recommendation Justjibberish I have put it in my basket.

If she is a non-native speaker, then the Longman grammar books (at various levels) are great, as is Michael Vince.

I'd prefer a professional linguist rather than Carol Vorderman teaching me tbh.

What books does your friend already have? Is she following a course?

Thanks. I shall have a look at those also. She has a Trinity coursebook, but it takes a piecemeal approach, as teaching books do, and it makes her feel nervous.

I have a great one for Spanish. It doesn´t have everything in but it does a good job of acting as a reference for me when I want to check something.

Trinity College? The exams people? Waste of time. The Cambridge English exams website is pretty good, but I wouldn't touch Trinity with a bargepole these days.

I have to say I find, as an English speaker, lots of the material she is given close to pointless. Sometimes there are articles whose meaning is obscure to me (and I have a PhD in literature). They´re not highly sophisticated, just badly written!

Well, lots is an exaggeration actually. There have been instances for the use of irony, for example, that have been so clunky and ill-fitting that they were very difficult to explain

I know exactly what you mean- I teach English as a second language, and the more enlightened of us (I hope I can include myself in that category!) despair of most coursebooks. Thankfully, there is a movement towards observing grammar in context and then applying it, rather than learning rules (all of which have a trillion exceptions) and then doing silly sentence writing exercises.

I refuse to use a coursebook- though my (bilingual) dd's English teacher keeps going on to me (we are colleagues) that dd "isn't able to explain the rules and as you know, our programme is based on rules". I just nod-and-smile-nod-and-smile and tell dd that in 5 yrs time, she'll still be bilingual, but no longer being taught by someone from the stone age.

Troublesome words by Bill Bryson is entertaining and informative

Are you in Spain by any chance ThenCameTheFools? That sounds very familiar. Sometimes I feel it would be better if I had every sentence I speak stamped and signed by a Ministry of Education official! And the attitude really gets in the way of her actually learning.

Thanks for the recommendation Muffin.

No, margaritas, Italy- I believe you and I have chatted under an old username of mine about something- can't think what though! I did live in Spain in the 80s, and my degree is Spanish, though I think the educational systems are pretty similar. I think Spain may just be ahead of us on the evolutionary scale

Ah, I thought that I recognised your name. I wouldn´t be surprised if I had been despairing of some grammar issue she had presented me to solve.