Talk:English in Use

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Intended Audience

The intended auidence of this wikibook:

• native speakers of English
• advanced learners of English as a second language

Various

Hey Empororbma, what is the audience for your English book ? American high school students, English as a second language students .. ? Do you intend it to be a bit unique in structure and goals than most traditional books on the English language ? Maybe a brief outline of your goals for the book would help me understand. Maybe we could do this for many or all books .. or at least it becomes more useful when there are more gray areas .... --Karl Wick

There's a big problem with trying to make a textbook for English on the English version of Wikibooks, and that is that there is no focused audience, apart from a very high competence level. Wait until other language versions are started. Gabriel Beecham 16:53, 21 Aug 2003 (UTC)

English:Time was moved from wikipedia and should be incorporated somewhere. --67.118.0.241 22:57, 26 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Learn English in English?

It seems strange to have a "learn English" wikibook in English. I think that this wikibook could be used to gather some lessons written by English native-speakers, which could then be translated into other languages. A language wikibook could always use some native-speaker input, and the other language versions of this seem rather fragmented.

did a quick test page at User:Nateji77/ESL, poorly formatted tho. i'd prefer pictorial instructions to "highlight with compter mouse to see words" but cant make images where i'm at, but non-english wikis could take those and translate the instructions. Nateji77 00:15, 26 September 2005 (UTC)

I strongly disagree with the idea that an English textbook should not be here. I would say that 80-90% of native English speakers do not know English. Obviously, they can speak it, and generally, they do so correctly. But they cannot tell you why they do so, because they do not know the rules of English. That is what this book is for. Next time you're confused about the difference between a conjunction and a preposition (and you might be surprised how hard it is to define the difference), thank the writers here that there's a place with an answer. --Cromwellt|talk 23:10, 17 February 2006 (UTC)

Me too. So many native speakers have a poor command of the language and this article would be very useful. I am a teacher of English as a Foreign Language and most students learn English only using English coursebooks (i.e. with no translations). Learning English in English is the most common way to learn the language

I agree with it. For example: I am Czech. You probably have no idea how horrible Czech textbooks for learning English are. Most of them were written in communistic times and it seems, that writing of these books was part of fight against capitalism. All better teachers are telling children to buy English textbooks from Oxford, Cambridge, or something similar. So long live this textbook! --Milhaus 17:11, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

Broken links

I am observing bad things happen to this Wikibook... For example, content moved from the English:Gerund page to the English/Grammar/Gerund and participles page. The English:Gerund page is now blank.

But some things still link to English:Gerund instead of English/Grammar/Gerund and participles, so readers get a blank page sometimes.

I suggest that users stop moving material until we understand how it broke and how to fix it. --Kernigh 01:18, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

I have posted to User talk:201.50.79.58 because that user blanked English:Gerund and English/Grammar/Gerund while trying to move material. However, I might have missed the user. That IP address belongs to Telemar, a large Brazilian Internet Service Provider, and might be dynamically assigned. --Kernigh 01:29, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

It sounds like the pages are not so much broken as they are simply not correctly moved. The links to the previous page should simple by changed over to the new page, and all will be well. I'll see what I can do. It shouldn't be too hard. I'd like to continue the process of standardization of pages here also. --Cromwellt|talk 04:31, 19 February 2006 (UTC)

Well, I found out that the links to the "English:Gerund" page were almost entirely on the English navigation template, so I changed the template. Now all of the links on those pages (on the template) link to the right place, but this problem may appear again in the future. I don't know if this is a big deal, but I also couldn't get the pages which link to the template to disappear from the "English:Gerund" whatlinkshere page. Maybe that will be fixed at a certain time each day or something, because another page I had the same trouble on a couple weeks ago is now the way it should be (this is the first time I've checked it since then). --Cromwellt|talk 06:28, 19 February 2006 (UTC)

Refocus

In conjunction with my comments earlier on this talk page, I feel that this Wikibook should not necessarily be so much directed toward second-language learners, and much more toward people who do not know the rules of English. This includes second-language learners, but also includes native speakers who know how to speak it but don't know the rules. For that reason I think we should move the references to EAL to the bottom of the page, with a new introduction showing this new focus. How do the rest of you feel about the idea? --Cromwellt|talk 04:29, 19 February 2006 (UTC)

So the book isn't broken (as I said above), but it is still in need of cleanup. We have a "Grammar" page which is not being used on the ToC and pages like "Adjectives and Adverbs" which do not exist but are on the ToC. Added to all this is that the ToC listed here and the navigation template (Template:English) do not match in a variety of ways. Overall, the issues here are ugly. I personally think that all parts of speech should be under "Grammar" as subcategories, and that each part of speech should have its own page (with no larger category putting them together except "Grammar"). Where two or more are related closely or could be confused, etc. (such as adjectives and adverbs), there should be a subpage (or description on a page) of the potential confusion, etc., but this should be (if it is a separate page) under "Grammar" immediately after the two things as the next page to read. At the moment, the book is rather disorganized, which is worsened by the fact that some pages are of the colon standard and others of the forward-slash standard. We've got our work cut out for us. Happy editing! --Cromwellt|talk 05:42, 19 February 2006 (UTC)

Restructure

I would like to separate this into two distinct books:

• English - Structured like a grammar and uasge book for native English speakers.
• English as an Additional Language - Structured like a traditional foreign language book

I also would like to change the navigation template and create an exercise template.

Here's my proposed structure for English. Each page should be about the same size. If there are no comments in a few days I'll go ahead with it, so please give your opinion.

Introduction (purpose, intended audience, book structure, brief language history) About (authors, contributing information, sources)
Words Parts of speech overview Nouns and pronouns Verbs Adjectives and adverbs Prepostions, conjunctions, and interjections Verbals	Sentences Overview [ Introduction / Forms (simple, compund, complex) / Purposes (declarative, imperative, interrogative, exclamatory) ] Basic componenents (subject, predicate, direct object, indirect object) Phrases Clauses Fragments and run-on sentences	Usage Adjective and adverb usage Pronoun usage Subject-verb agreement Verb usage
Punctuation End marks Commas Apostrophes Quotations Other common punctuation marks (Includes semicolon, colon, dash and hyphen, parentheses and other brackets) Less common typographical marks (Marks found here and here not already included)	Other key topics Capitalization Spelling (Common rules, words often confused, plural forms of nouns) Writing and composition Figures of Syntax / Syntax Recent grammar restructure attempts	Appendices Exercise appendix External resources Commons errors History Dictionary Thesaurus

The vocabulary and glossary sections will go to English as an Additional Language. Comments are appreciated! --hagindaz 22:27, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

What are your plans for English as an Additional Language? My idea for it, as I said oh-so-long-ago under "Learn English in English", would be to write a progressive, bottom-up textbook that pretends that it is written not in English, but in some other language, and presupposes no knowledge of English. For example, the first chapter would introduce nouns and the present progressive tense and tell a short, simple story (in English) for the reader to try their hand at translating. The goal would be to produce a text for the German, Japanese, Spanish, etc. Wikibook authors to translate into their respective languages. --209.6.213.142 01:55, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

I don't know how EAL classes are traditionally taught and don't have any experience with them, so I won't be able to help there. But to me that sounds like it would be an excellent method. Now that this book is split up, each book will be able to fully concentrate on its own goals and audience, so that should hopefully increase contributors for both projects. --hagindaz 02:14, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

I've gotten a username (I was 209.6.213.142) and started drawing up an outline at Talk:English as an Additional Language. You're welcome to help contribute, since activity in this area seems rather sparse. --Krestom 20:43, 22 July 2006 (UTC)

I have provided an example page and discussed my intentions with this book at English in Use/Introduction. --hagindaz 00:29, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

Why Not in PDF?

It's written there that creating a truly pdf book from the printable version is easy with the help of open software such as Adobe PDF Creator. Why don't you make it yourself rather than offer users to do this?

ePub is better than PDF.

My Plans

There are several books on Wikibooks about "English". There is this book. There is the book for "English as an additional language" (which is a term that few people use - "English as a Foreign (or Second) Language" is more universal). There is a book I am creating for "FCE Studies" (First Certificate in English by Cambridge University) and another book I may eventually try to develop which is targetted towards level B2 students studying English as a foreign language. My plan would be to have all of those books as links from "English" and have most of the material presently on "English" moved to something like "English Language in Use"

ENGLISH BOOK -> linking to the following books: 1. English Language in Use (guide to grammar and use of language for English natives and advanced learners of English [native speakers and levels C1 and C2] 2. English as a Second Language (present English as an Additional Language book) - targetted towards elementary and lower intermediate students [level A1 and A2] 3. English for Upper Intermediate Students (currently being planned in my head) [level B1 and B2] 4. FCE English - guide for students taking the FCE exam. [level B2]

The level codes I have used are the Common European Framework for languages and understood by all learners of foreign languages in Europe and much of Asia. Obviously a brief about what the level codes mean will also be needed.

Does anyone have any comments or problems about such a change? This book seems quite inactive so unless I hear any dissent I may go ahead soon (safe in the knowledge that changes could be reverted). Xania ^talk 00:31, 28 April 2007 (UTC)

Former contents

I am moving what was a former material from the main page of "English in Use" here: --Dan Polansky (talk) 10:36, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

Detailed contents

1. Introduction
2. Grammar
3. Articles and nouns
   1. Articles
      1. The definite article
         1. General uses of the definite article
         2. Omissions of the definite article
      2. The indefinite article
         1. General uses of the indefinite article
         2. Omissions of the indefinite article
   2. Nouns
      1. Concrete
         1. Proper
         2. Common
            1. Individual
            2. Collective
      2. Abstract
         1. Attribute
         2. Verbal
      3. Words and word groups used as nouns
         1. Adjectives made nouns
         2. Pronouns made nouns
         3. Verbs made nouns
         4. Participles made nouns
         5. Adverbs made nouns
         6. Conjunctions made nouns
         7. Prepositions made nouns
         8. Interjections or phrases made nouns
      4. Countable and uncountable nouns
      5. Compound nouns
      6. Inflections of Nouns
         1. Genders
         2. Numbers
            1. Regular plurals
            2. Almost-regular plurals
            3. Irregular plurals
               1. Irregular Germanic plurals
               2. Irregular plurals of foreign origin
            4. Exercises
         3. Cases
            1. The Nominative Case
            2. The Possessive Case
            3. The Objective Case
            4. The declension of nouns
      7. The noun as a modifier
      8. The syntactic functions of nouns
      9. References
4. Verbs
   1. Present and past
      1. Present simple
      2. Present continuous
      3. Present simple and present continuous
      4. Past simple
      5. Past continuous
      6. Past simple and past continuous
      7. Used to
   2. Present perfect and past
      1. Present perfect
      2. Present perfect continuous
      3. Present perfect and past
      4. Past perfect
      5. Past perfect continuous
      6. Past perfect and simple past
   3. Future
      1. Future perfect
      2. Future perfect continuous
      3. Future simple
      4. Future with 'going to'
      5. Present continuous for future events
      6. Present simple for future events
   4. If-Clauses (conditional) and 'wish'
5. Pronouns
   1. Demonstrative pronouns
   2. Interrogative pronouns
   3. Personal pronouns
   4. Possessive pronouns
   5. Relative pronouns
6. Adjectives and adverbs
   1. Adjectives
      1. Function
      2. Form
      3. Adjectives ending in -ing and -ed
      4. Adjectives word order
      5. The + adjective
      6. Personality adjectives
   2. Adverbs
      1. Function
      2. Form
      3. Kinds of adverbs
         1. Adverbs of degree
         2. Adverbs of time
         3. Adverbs of manner
         4. Adverbs of place
         5. Conjunctive adverbs
      4. Adverbs word order
      5. Comparative forms of adverbs
      6. Adverbs with different forms and meanings
      7. Adverbs with different forms and same meanings
   3. Adjectives and adverbs
   4. Adverbs with same form as the adjective
      1. Any more, any longer, no longer
      2. Enough and too
      3. Ever
      4. Quite and rather
      5. Still, yet and already
      6. So and such
   5. Comparison
   6. Superlatives
   7. References
7. Conjunctions
8. Prepositions
9. Interjections
10. Functions
11. Gerund and participles
12. Punctuation
13. Orthography
14. Syntax
    1. Appositives
    2. Figures of Syntax
15. Study guide
16. History

Style

Perhaps titles should start from level two like in Wikipedia (two equal signs). The verbs article differs in that respect. The nouns article has too deep hierarchy, I think hierarchy should not be deeper than 3 levels. Tkorrovi (talk) 14:15, 8 April 2009 (UTC)

I fully appreciate the contributions of everyone here. I'm by far not an expert in grammar, but still I don't understand why some want to break the Goold Brown's grammar. Like, one added an article about appositives, without even reading the syntax article before, and noticing that appositions are already mentioned there. In my opinion, the value of the Goold Brown's grammar is that it is comprehensive grammar, if one thinks that he knows something which is not mentioned there at all, he is most likely wrong, except when he is a very good grammarian. I don't know that much about grammar, and I am only able to copy and adjust that which others have written, but still I don't think that anyone here is good enough to be able to write a comprehensive grammar from scratch. I think that the advanced grammar must be a comprehensive grammar. If one considers this book to be just another grammar, then this book would not make any sense. And as much as I know, Goold Brown's grammar is the only comprehensive public domain grammar, so there is no other grammar which could be the basis of this book. Of course the Goold Brown's grammar is old and partly outdated, but why not edit it and make it a modern comprehensive grammar? Just my thoughts... Tkorrovi (talk) 14:09, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

The article on articles is also missing, it is there: Articles. Tkorrovi (talk) 19:21, 12 April 2009 (UTC)

Scope of this grammar

I think I should explain more the scope of this grammar. This is what supposed to be a comprehensive grammar, though using the word comprehensive may be somewhat unsafe. One may think that a comprehensive or complete grammar should contain everything about grammar, but when we for example compile all scientific works on grammar, then such grammar would likely consist of hundreds of volumes. This grammar is comprehensive in a sense that it covers everything in grammar, but is at that as short as possible. Whatever such grammar should be called, one thing is clear—this grammar cannot be simplified or made shorter by omitting complicated parts or terms. It is therefore a level C grammar, while the grammar in Rhetoric and Composition is level B grammar. Maybe it should be called a Complete English Grammar, but again some may misunderstand what the complete there means.Tkorrovi (talk) 22:36, 22 May 2009 (UTC)

This grammar is based on Goold Brown's grammar and I think it should be, as this gives it a value, and is also a certain guarantee of quality. It can be partly based on any newer grammars as well, but Goold Brown wrote the first comprehensive English grammar, and his grammar is because of that a kind of classical source.Tkorrovi (talk) 12:45, 23 May 2009 (UTC)

Pages to be merged

The following pages were not moved from the English book before it was redirected to Subject:English language. Please merge their content into this book or tag them with {{delete|(reason)}}.

• English in Use/Parts of Speech
• English in Use/Phrasal Verbs
• English in Use/Vocabulary
• English in Use/Vocabulary/Data
• English in Use/Vocabulary/Adjectives

-- Adrignola ^{talk contribs} 03:13, 19 June 2009 (UTC)

Cambridge series

Is the title copied from Cambridge's In Use series? English Vocabulary in User, Advanced Grammar in Use, English Collocations in Use, Business Vocabulary use and so on. Kayau (talk) 13:47, 18 July 2009 (UTC)