English Foundations: Grammar, Sentence Patterns, Vocabulary, Idioms, Pronunciation and Everyday Dialogues — From First Principles to Fluent Use

Most learners piece English together from a dozen different books, apps and websites. English Foundations brings it all into one place. It starts from first principles — what a noun is, what a clause is, why a sentence needs a verb — and goes on to the details that separate good English from excellent English: where the adverb goes, when which needs a comma, why I have seen him yesterday is wrong, and how British and American speakers say the same thing differently.

Every rule is stated in plain words, shown in a table or diagram, and followed by examples, with correct and incorrect versions side by side so you can see the mistake and the fix at a glance. Printed in compact type on 574 pages, the book packs in 69 chapters, nearly 800 tables and close to 90 figures.

What is inside

- Words and their forms: nouns, articles and determiners, pronouns, verbs, modal verbs, adjectives, adverbs, prepositions, conjunctions and interjections; infinitives, gerunds and participles; prefixes, suffixes and 150 word families.

- All the tenses: the twelve tense forms on clear timelines (with a 3D "tense cube"), the future, the passive and causatives, conditionals, wishes, the subjunctive and reported speech.

- Every kind of sentence: declarative, interrogative, imperative and exclamatory; simple, compound, complex and compound-complex; phrases and clauses; joining sentences with that and which; inversion and emphasis; modifiers (and modifier overload); verb patterns; punctuation; and one hundred common errors.

- Vocabulary grouped by meaning: ten themed chapters of synonyms from mild to strong, with their phrasal verbs; about 300 idioms by meaning; around 250 advanced words for expanding your vocabulary; 126 verified quotations by theme; confusable words; and 150 British–American vocabulary pairs.

- The animal kingdom in words: animal adjectives (canine, feline, vulpine), collective nouns (a school of fish, a murder of crows — and which ones people really use), animal sounds, young, male and female forms, homes, and animal idioms.

- Pronunciation and phonetics: the IPA, vowels and consonants, spelling and sound, word stress, connected speech, intonation, accents of English and a twelve-week practice programme.

- Everyday dialogues: greetings and ways to reply (yes, including How do you do?), telephone and video calls, requests, thanks and apologies, opinions, shopping and travel, emergencies, job interviews, meetings, emails and small talk.

- Practice and reference: Check Yourself exercises after every grammar chapter with answers, 146 irregular verbs, a tense master chart, a glossary of grammar terms and an IPA quick reference.

British spelling is used throughout, with the American form shown alongside wherever the two differ. Word histories, usage notes and the attribution of every quotation have been checked against dictionaries, style guides and original sources — and where usage is changing or disputed, the book says so honestly.

Whether you are an intermediate or advanced learner, a student preparing for an examination, a professional polishing your writing, or a native speaker who wants to know the reasons behind the rules, English Foundations is the one English reference you can keep on your desk.