| Book of the Month | ||
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Idioms at work | |
Publisher: Language Teaching Publications
Author: Vera McLay
96 pages
Price £6.95
ISBN 0-906717-60 -4
Last month we looked at an international dictionary of idioms. We stay with the theme of idioms this month, but this time our subject is the smaller and lighter version from the America-based Language Teaching Group.
If you want a comprehensive list of idioms, you will do much better to pay the extra and get the Cambridge Dictionary reviewed last month. While that book offered thousands of idioms and their definitions, Idioms at work offers just 150 of the most common. also, while the Cambridge International Dictionary of Idioms had almost 600 pages, this book has less than 100, including the answers.
On the other hand, if you want to know the most common 150 idioms in English really well, then you might prefer this book. After a short introduction explaining what idioms are and when to use them, the book gets straight to work. There are fifteen chapters, and each chapter teaches ten idioms. The idioms are organised around a particular idea, so you get a ten idioms on 'winning and losing' , for example, or 'time' or 'money'. First the idioms are introduced, and then you have ten sentences, and you have to decide which idiom goes in each sentence. Every five chapters there is a revision test.
An interesting idea is that underneath each sentence you are given the meaning of the idiom in English, Spanish, French, Italian and German. While there is nothing wrong with this idea, we question the choice of languages. If you speak one of them, this book is a good choice for you. But in a world where English is a global language, we would have prefered Arabic, Mandarin, Hindi and Spanish.
There is a website for the book www.ltpwebsite.com/idiomsatwork.htm . Here you can find a sample page from the book. It is simply a photocopied page, rather than being properly laid out for the web, but it gives you an idea of what to expect. On every page there is a large cartoon, showing what the idiom might mean if it was literally true. For instance the cover has a man with a gigantic knife in him to illustrate the idiom 'stabbed in the back'.
Who is this book for? It's for students who want to have something light that will help them to learn the most common idioms in English. It can be used in the classroom, but it is better as a self-study book.
Verdict: A good little book. But it is expensive for 150 idioms.
Assessment 7/10