Brush Up Your English [antikvár]

PREFACE There are two important things to be said about this book. Firstly, it is not intended for beginners, but for those who already know some English. Secondly, it represents the English spoken every day, and not the peculiar language which still figures in a good many grammar books. It is essential for the foreign visitor to England to realize what a great difference there is between the written and the spoken language, and to have plenty of practice in the latter; otherwise, though he may be able to make himself understood, he will find great difficulty in understanding what is said to him. Mr. and Mrs. Smith and their friends have not tried to make things easy; that is not the way to leam spoken English, for it is not an easy language. But they have used no expression which is not in common use. Their object has been to show how people really speak. Their only hope is that this book will help the visitor to England to get over that feeling of helplessness which so often afflicts him when he hears normal conversational English for the first time. The vocabularies at the bottom of the pages do not pretend to be perfect literary translations. They merely give an idea of what Mr. and Mrs. Smith are talking about. Only the more important words and phrases are given, for the reader of this book will profit far more by it if he understands it in English than if he always has his native language present in his mind. I think perhaps I ought to add a word about the vocabularies. Charles and Mary don't know much French and German. That's the real reason they wouldn't go abroad, not the children being seasick (see Conversation i). Besides, what they knew they had learned in Switzerland. I told them that several friends abroad had pointed out funny expressions in the vocabularies, such as