The ONE grammar in any language (Language Programs, Books & Tapes) Language Learning Forum

The ONE grammar in any language
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Language Learning Forum : Language Programs, Books & Tapes

19 messages over 3 pages: 1 2 3

Doitsujin
Diglot
Senior Member
Germany
Joined 5321 days ago
1256 posts - 2363 votes

Speaks: German*, English

Message 17 of 19

03 April 2014 at 3:02pm | IP Logged

Serpent wrote:

If I have a specific question (for example, whether "think positive" is correct), I google and look for pages dedicated to this specific issue.

I also often google collocations, however, since Google indexes everything, including questionable English usage by non-native speakers such as myself, I often double-check collocations using the following sites:

Netspeak (English collocation search based on a large 2006 corpus)
Google Books Ngram Viewer (collocation search in books indexed by Google Books)

For Arabic, I occasionally refer to (the original German edition) of Standard Arabic: An Elementary-Intermediate Course by Schulz, Krahl & Wolfgang Reuschel. The lessons in this university textbook are sometimes a bit boring, but the grammatical features of Arabic are well explained with lots of examples. The book also contains many appendixes with conjugation tables for all types of irregular and regular verbs (active/passive, forms I-X etc.).
If I cannot find something in this book, I usually refer to A Reference Grammar of Modern Standard Arabic by Karin C. Ryding.
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Serpent
Octoglot
Senior Member
Russian Federation
serpent-849.livejour
Joined 6598 days ago
9753 posts - 15779 votes

4 sounds
Speaks: Russian*, English, Finnish^C1, Latin, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese
Studies: Danish, Romanian, Polish, Belarusian, Ukrainian, Croatian, Slovenian, Catalan, Czech, Galician, Dutch, Swedish

Message 18 of 19

03 April 2014 at 6:57pm | IP Logged

I don't mean I google just the number of instances. I look for pages that are specifically about that, with examples from respectable sources. The first pages of google search often contain results with the phrase in their title.

And of course in other languages the numbers are more reliable too.

Edited by Serpent on 03 April 2014 at 6:58pm
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Mountolive
Pro Member
United States
Joined 4460 days ago
10 posts - 29 votes
Speaks: English*
Studies: Spanish
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Message 19 of 19

13 April 2014 at 7:13am | IP Logged

For Spanish I would say Robert Spaulding's 1956 revision of Marathon Montrose Ramsey's "A Textbook of Modern Spanish." Still the best after all these years.

I have the 4th Edition of Butt & Benjamin's "A New Reference Grammar" and it is certainly authoritative, but the book seems targeted at academics. There is too much information about regional differences, etc., and it is not well-organized for actually learning grammar.

Ramsey's book is, IMO, better written and organized for actual learning, and equally comprehensive. A little dated, perhaps, but so what?

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