Preface
It is so easy to forget, in learning a foreign language, that language chiefly in its spoken form. For many students, the convenience and availability of books, the relative permanence of writing, and the authority of great literature combine to give the written language a preeminence that it does not really possess. Speech is then seen as a pale reflection of writing, and its grammar and vocabulary is judged, misleadingly, by the standards of written expression.
The English languag