'English Grammar in Use' has been going for thirty years, so I've had a lot of opportunity
to make any changes I've wanted to make, which is very nice for an author.
I wrote the book as a self-study book for learners of English from anywhere in the world.
I wrote for adults, and I wrote it for self-study. A book that people could use on their own
outside a classroom. If they didn't get the information they wanted or the practice they
wanted in the class - about grammar, I mean - then they had this other source of information.
Because students asked continually for grammar books. Which is fair enough.
A grammar book and a dictionary are their essential reference tools.
Yeah, there's been lots of changes. Mainly small changes, and also additions. But the
essence of the book is the same, and the way it works is the same. It's easy to use;
it's clear what you have to do. You've got the information on one page and the exercises
on the facing page. And it's written for students to use. That means writing in language which
is naturally simple, but simple. Getting rid of the words - too many words, not being wordy,
and avoiding grammatical terminology. Because you don't need grammatical terminology.
Grammar and language, they're not academic things. We don't need that. I like to present the language:
this is how it is, this is how it works, here are some examples, now you have a go.
That's what it is. I don't need to cloud that in lots of mystery.
So I think that's how it is the same as it was. I hope so, anyway.
The essential content is the same. So really we're talking more about details.
On the left-hand pages I've tried to improve the wording of explanations.
On the right hand pages, the exercises, I've tried to improve the exercises, make them more appropriate to the task.
So there are lots of changes on that scale. But in addition to that, there are whole new sections
added to the book, additional exercises. They are exercises which cover more than one unit.
Also a study guide, which is a kind of diagnostic test. So if a user wants to get some idea
of what would be useful for him or for her to study, then they can use this
multiple choice diagnostic test which we call a study guide. The look of the book has changed, as well.
So originally, of course, it was black and white, and then 1-colour...or 2-colour rather;
and then 4-colour printing. And the general design of the book has been changed,
and the art has been changed: that sort of thing.
And finally the book is being updated. Now that covers quite a lot of things, but in
particular, sentences like: "I must go to the bank to get some money" - that doesn't
sound quite right these days. You'd be more inclined to just say: "I'm going to get some money...
...get some money out of an ATM or a cash machine". But you wouldn't normally talk
about going to the bank to get some money. You still go to the bank, and you can get
money in the bank, but normally you go to the bank to do more complicated things.
It's not a routine thing as it was in, say, 1970, 1980. Developing photographs, you know,
somebody says: "Oh, can I see your holiday photographs", and you say: "Well, yeah, I'll show them to you,
but I haven't had the film developed yet." So that wouldn't ring true; people would
[think]: "That's strange." It also works the other way. There are things
you can say now which you couldn't have said thirty years ago. So you might say: "I've
lost my phone." If you said that thirty years ago - "I've lost my phone" - that would be
a rather strange thing to say. It's a bit like saying: "I lost my fridge."
A phone is not something you can lose.
In the course of the history of the book, standard English has changed. I should clarify
that: it's my perception of standard English. Because there isn't any one perception of
standard English. We have this sort of very vague idea of what is acceptable and what
is not acceptable in standard English. It's not a question of right or wrong; it's a question
of what is appropriate in that particular version of English. So things have changed
in the lifetime of the book, and I have changed the book accordingly. So a few things that
I didn't have in the original editions are now in the current editions.
Shortly after the British editions were published, Cambridge University Press decided to publish
an American English version. It's not that American and British grammar is very different,
because it isn't. I should emphasise to you: I'm talking about standard British English
and standard American English. So if you compare those two, there are very, very few differences
in grammar. Most of them are quite small, and they're not complete. So things which
maybe an American would say more than a British person would say, but they still work in both
forms of the language. There are a few things, like in British English we use "Shall I" and
"Shall we". I think that's unusual in American, to use "shall" in those situations.
"Needn't". "You needn't do something", Americans find a bit strange, a bit odd - unusual.
Also smaller things, specific things. Like in British English, we'd say: "He's ill; he's in hospital."
In American English, it would be: "He's in THE hospital." Even though you may not be thinking
about a particular hospital. Whereas in British English, in that situation, "He's in hospital."
And there are lots of other, smaller differences like that. But that really wasn't the main
reason to have an American edition - not the main reason. The main reason is because the
main differences between British and American English are to do with vocabulary, with idiom,
with style. And an American reading my British text would find it very British. And someone
who wanted to learn American English might be disappointed that they were getting British English.
I should say also, of course, that I didn't do this personally. We had an American
adapter, Will Smalzer, and he went through the text and changed all the things that needed
changing. So "shop" became "store". Anything that sounded British was changed to something
that sounded American. And then I read through that, and we worked together to make sure
that we produced a version that we both found was right, and that's how the American editions
were produced.
There are two types of bilingual versions. There are adaptations, where the content actually changes.
There are simple translations where it's just translated, so everything's the
same except certain bits are in a different language. The adaptations are mainly for 'Essential
Grammar in Use', the lower level. And in the adaptations, the content changes, so maybe
some units are not the same in the international edition as they are in, say, the Italian edition,
or the German edition, or the French edition. So certain changes were made in accordance
with the needs of people from that particular language group. So if you're writing a book
for international learners, for example, in my books there is a unit comparing "a" and
"the": the indefinite and definite articles. "A car" and "the car". If a first language
doesn't have articles, then that's a valid thing to do. But if your first language is
German or French, for example - most Western European languages, anyway - you already have
this difference between a definite and indefinite article. You've already learned that difference.
Of course, they don't work in 100% the same way, but the basic difference between "a"
and "the", you don't have to teach that to a German-speaking learner or a French-speaking learner.
Whereas someone who is Japanese, or is Turkish, or is Russian, that's a different story.
So that unit - "a" and "the" - you won't find in the Italian edition. But you
will find other things which are not in the international edition.
The others are translations. The first translation of any translated edition was Icelandic,
very soon after the book was published. It was for schools. The book was adopted in schools
in Iceland, and they wanted a translated version. Translations are useful for learners because
it's quite hard reading a book - a grammar reference book - in the language that you're
actually learning. It's quite a challenge. You know, I've got German grammars and French
grammars at home, but they're in English, and they're written for speakers of English.
With the higher-level book, 'English Grammar in Use', I think that's okay for most learners.
They manage. Because it's written quite simply. And 'Essential Grammar in Use', the lower
level, although it's written in a very simple style and there are not too many words on
the page, it's still quite a challenge. I find it a challenge if I'm learning Turkish
or something and I have to read a text in Turkish: oh, that's hard. So if a student
can do it, that's great, because it's another experience of using the language you're learning.
But if you can't, or you want to focus on the task of learning the language or learning
about the grammar in this case, it's a good idea to have translated versions.
Ebooks are being produced at the moment, and will be out pretty soon. Ebooks have the advantage,
people who want to work using a screen instead of paper - using a screen and their finger
or mouse or whatever, rather than a pen and paper - it's good to have this alternative presentation.
But the ebook content is the same as in the book. An important advantage
of the ebook is it has audio, which of course the book itself doesn't have, so it means
that somebody using the book by themselves can now hear all the examples.
That's a big plus.
We produced a mobile app for 'English Grammar in Use'. I think it was a year or two ago.
This is distinct from the ebook. The ebook is just a screen version - a digital version
- of the print book. The mobile app, which is 'English Grammar in Use' - not 'Essential
Grammar in Use' but 'English Grammar in Use' - is rather different. Because the mobile
app was written particularly for phones. And iPads, but I was thinking particularly of
phones, which means a very small screen. So using a very, very small screen is going to
be a bit different from using two fairly large pages. In the book, you have a left-hand page
and a right-hand page. The left-hand page has information, and the right-hand page has
exercises. So you look at the left-hand page, you study the left-hand page as much as you
want, and then you move to the right-hand page for exercises, and you can go back and
forth if you wish. With the app, you...on a small screen, on a phone screen, you can't
really do that. You can't get the content of the left-hand page, if you like, on one screen.
So it's divided up into smaller chunks. And after each small chunk, you are taken
to an exercise. Then you go back to the second chunk, and then to another exercise or maybe
two exercises, building up gradually to the end of the unit. Also, the exercises have
been significantly changed in order to fit the limitations of a digital product.
One that can be easily checked. So you can't have lots of exercises which are open-ended, because
there's no clear way of checking it. You can't say "right" or "wrong"; there are too many possibilities.
And also if you have a lot of typing, then people are going to make typing
errors, and you have that problem to contend with as well. So it's better to have exercises
which are more closed, where there are a very limited number of right-or-wrong possibilities.
Those are the main differences. The app, of course, like the ebook, has audio which is,
again, a huge benefit. It has the same function: it's for use as self-study, for people to
use by themselves to select what they want to study. That's exactly the same as in the book.
I like to be careful about giving any advice to teachers because it's a long time since
I've done any teaching. I would say that if you're teaching a language, teaching English,
you should inform yourself of how the language works. It's interesting anyway, and even if
you're not explicitly using that, you should be aware of it. Not just your language, but
the language of the people that you're teaching. Even if you don't speak the language, don't
get very far with learning it, you can still learn about it. But don't get obsessed about it,
and don't feel that your students have to learn grammar. Because they're not there
to learn grammar. Grammar's a part of the language; they're learning the language.
You don't learn grammar as a separate thing. So I think the focus in teaching and learning
should be, most of the time, somewhere else. Occasionally, you can focus on grammar, but
generally speaking you should be focusing on other things. I also think it's important
to realise how grammar - and language generally, really - is learned. You can't really talk
about grammar being learned: it's language. I mean, you can't have grammar without words,
or words without grammar. To be aware of the way in which it's learned, and the variety of ways.
Because you're dealing with people - if you're dealing with adults, particularly -
- they're very, very different from each other, and people learn in different ways and at
different speeds. It's important to be aware that learning a language is a bit like learning
to drive, or learning to do anything like that. Learning to dance, learning to play a sport.
People learn at different speeds, and learning happens in different ways, and
the brain acquires things almost when you're not aware of it. You know, you suddenly find
you can drive one day, and the day before you couldn't. It's just when things come together.
And grammar comes together in the same way. So you might teach a lesson on using this tense
or something, and...don't expect it to work immediately, you know. It's going
to be a while. That's just one little bit of input, and hopefully there'd be lots of
other bits of input. And then things come together, quite sort of miraculously, really.
And differently for different people.