English Grammar 101 - Foreword Welcome to English Grammar 101. The author, Marvin Van Horne, originally created this instructional series from his love of language and the real world needs of his students. Once created, he quickly realized the series could not only benefit his students but anyone interested in improving his or her knowledge of the English language. Over his thirty-six year career, Marvin developed a teaching method that allowed students to learn language concepts and experience the language at the same time. Each lesson contained in English Grammar 101 is completely self correcting. This grammar series may be used for individual study, or as an instructional series for language art classes, alternative education settings, home schooling, or ESL courses. We hope you enjoy using English Grammar 101. Good luck with your studies!
ATA - American Translators Association - Translators Interpreters Translation Interpreting The tricks to not writing badly We copy editors like to think of ourselves as guarantors of accuracy, protectors of the reader, guardians of the language, and other noble roles. But the plain fact is that our basic task is to keep people from making asses of themselves in public. Now, of course, our numbers are much diminished, something like half of the nation's newspaper copy editors having lost their jobs in the past decade. Fortunately, Ben Yagoda understands that the trick of achieving what he calls "good-enough writing" is to avoid the errors that make you look like an unskilled writer. He is no mere rule-monger. He runs through the basics of punctuation. You will not, I think, find much novelty in his categories and examples, since they are by definition the most common solecisms, treated in other books as well. Once you have paid attention to the words, he says, you can concentrate on building effective sentences, and from there proceed to construct effective paragraphs.
Daily Grammar Archive - Comprehensive Archive of Grammar Lessons This archive contains links to all of our free grammar lessons and quizzes. You can use this archive to study Daily Grammar at your own pace. Lessons 1-90 cover the eight parts of speech, which are verbs, nouns, pronouns, adjectives, adverbs, prepositions, conjunctions, and interjections. Lessons 91-300 cover the parts of the sentence, such as appositives, predicate nominatives, direct objects, prepositional phrases, clauses, and verbals. Lessons 301-440 cover the mechanics of grammar, which is also known as capitalization and punctuation. Our lessons have been organized by lesson number and by subject. Lessons 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 - Quiz Lessons 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 - Quiz Lessons 11, 12, 13, 14, 15 - Quiz Lessons 31, 32, 33, 34, 35 - Quiz Lessons 36, 37, 38, 39, 40 - Quiz Lessons 41, 42, 43, 44, 45 - Quiz Lessons 46, 47, 48, 49, 50 - Quiz Lessons 51, 52, 53, 54, 55 - Quiz Lessons 56, 57, 58, 59, 60 - Quiz Lessons 61, 62, 63, 64, 65 - Quiz Lessons 66, 67, 68, 69, 70 - Quiz
Task-based grammar teaching By Lindsay Clandfield Lindsay Clandfield discusses task-based grammar teaching and provides a lesson plan based on this methodology which teaches the grammar point used to. Introduction One approach to teaching language that has attracted a lot of attention over the past 25 years is a task-based approach to learning and teaching. In task-based approaches, the focus of classroom activities is on the task, and ultimately on meaning (for more on task-based teaching and learning, see the Methodology section). In Jane Willis’ flexible model for task-based learning, learners begin by carrying out a communicative task, without specific focus on form. The advantage of the task-based approach, according to its advocates, is that during the task the learners are allowed to use whatever language they want, freeing them to focus entirely on the meaning of their message. One danger of task-based approaches is that focus on meaning could come at the expense of focus on form. Preparation Pre-task warmer
A Guide to Good Translation A Guide to Good Translation for Volunteers A wide variety of volunteers have registered as translators with Translations for Progress. Some are professional translators interested in contributing to a good cause, while others are language students with little to no experience in translation. Different volunteers have different capabilities, and we hope that this site will eventually offer plentiful volunteer opportunities ranging from basic translation to more advanced, challenging texts. For those of you with a bit less experience, we have put together a list of pointers to serve as a guide on how to provide the best possible translations for the organization you’re volunteering for: Always translate into your native language unless you are near native or bilingual in the second language. For more information on how the pros work, have a look at these links: Back Home Page
Neil Gaiman's 8 Rules of Writing By Maria Popova In the winter of 2010, inspired by Elmore Leonard’s 10 rules of writing published in The New York Times nearly a decade earlier, The Guardian reached out to some of today’s most celebrated authors and asked them to each offer his or her commandments. After Zadie Smith’s 10 rules of writing, here come 8 from the one and only Neil Gaiman: WritePut one word after another. Find the right word, put it down.Finish what you’re writing. Whatever you have to do to finish it, finish it.Put it aside. For more timeless wisdom on writing, see Kurt Vonnegut’s 8 rules for a great story, David Ogilvy’s 10 no-bullshit tips, Henry Miller’s 11 commandments, Jack Kerouac’s 30 beliefs and techniques, John Steinbeck’s 6 pointers, and Susan Sontag’s synthesized learnings. Image by Kimberly Butler
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How to Be a Good Translator Translation is a highly skilled, rewarding and satisfying job. But how do you become a good translator? Experienced translator Lanna Castellano has described the translator’s career path as follows: “Our profession is based on knowledge and experience. The first stage of the career pyramid – the apprenticeship stage – is the time we devote to investing in ourselves by acquiring knowledge and experience of life. Let me propose a life path: grandparents of different nationalities, a good school education in which you learn to read, write, spell, construe and love your own language. Go back to education, but to take a technical or commercial degree, not a language degree. Never marry into your own nationality. By which time you are forty and ready to begin”. That’s a hard path to follow. But you can be a good translator even if you don’t meet all of Lanna’s stringent criteria. Love language, especially your own.
Grammar Quizzes The quizzes with a magenta marble are also listed within the section or digital handout to which they apply. The twenty-one quizzes with a green marble and designated "Practice" have been adapted from the instructor's manual and other ancillary materials accompanying Sentence Sense: A Writer's Guide. They are duplicated here with permission of the author, Evelyn Farbman, and the publisher, Houghton Mifflin Inc. The seventeen quizzes with a gold marble were written by the English faculty at an estimable midwestern university and are used here with the permission of that department. The ten quizzes with a red marble were prepared by students in Professor Karyn Hollis's Tutor Training course at Villanova University. Clicking on the NUMBER immediately before the quiz's name will take you to the section of the Guide pertaining to the grammatical issue(s) addressed in that quiz. Clicking on the Guide's logo at the top of a quiz-page will bring you back to this page.