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Learn English Vocabulary 101 | |
Publisher: Innovative Language
Author: -
Sold by: Amazon Digital Services LLC
$0.0
ASIN: B006OIXKPY
You may have heard the saying that 'There's no such thing as a free lunch'. So what is one to make of a book called 'Learn English - Word Power 101' which is currently offered on Amazon Kindle for the magnificent price of $0.0?
The book instructs its users to 'Get ready to utterly shock and amaze your friends, family colleagues and teachers with the powerful vocabulary you will learn in this book'. The book does not explain how someone who is able to understand words like 'utterly shock' in the introduction is going to amaze anyone with the actual vocabulary, which consists of words like 'pig' and 'dog'. Perhaps, a friend or colleague might translate this part?
It is helpful to know from the introduction that the vocabulary in this book was 'selected by a panel of professional teachers', as otherwise we might assume it was a collection of pictures taken from the internet with a few expressions of random English added underneath.
That said, the book is a useful vocabulary aid if it is treated as a collection of pictures taken from the internet with a few expressions of random English added underneath. It can be used with a basic beginner or young child to teach some simple vocabulary such as parts of the body, animals or foods. Note however, that the 'English' learned in this way is nouns only, and the collections are far from comprehensive.
The 'examples' underneath are odd, and of random levels of English. (These are usually phrases, rather than the 'hundreds of sample sentences' advertised on the cover.) For example with 'white' we have the abstract, 'In some cultures, white symbolizes purity'. While with 'grey' we have the more concrete, 'The elephant is gray'. Many of these examples are one step above gibberish, and best ignored. It may also be a good idea to ignore the book's offer of 'accompanying' audio files, which you can download from the website.
An unkind person might assume that the purpose of the 'free' book is to harvest email addresses from readers attempting to get these audio files. A number of reviewers on amazon have reported that they could not access the audio files after submitting an email, and we could not either. The website also tries to sign you up for other offers as well.
Who is this book for? What value this book has lies in the fact that it offers a basic beginner around a hundred pictures with the English word for each noun shown. Of course, websites such as our own English For Everybody offer even more vocabulary without the need for a download, but sometimes the eBook format is more convenient.
Verdict: Another English saying is 'You get what you pay for'.
Assessment 0.5/10