English Resources

General Links	BBC: Learning English The Internet Grammar of English Glossary of Linguistic Terms Guide to Grammar and Writing (topics divided into word, sentence, paragraph, essay, research paper levels)
Words	World Wide Words ("Michael Quinion writes on international English from a British viewpoint"; articles, questions and answers, topical words, turns of phrase, weird words) Word Origins (The Big List, Resources) Online Etymology Dictionary Ask the Experts (usage, words, word origins)

Pronunciation

Voice of America Pronunciation Guide (short pronunciation list of recent VOA news items; also searchable)
A Guide for Classical Radio Announcers (by Chris Wendl; a guide on pronouncing the various European languages that are often encountered in classical music)
fonetiks (online pronunciation guides to 9 varieties of English and 9 other languages, mouse over text to hear sound)
Harry Potter Pronunciation Guide (for Harry Potter readers, click on the word to hear the pronunciation, albeit American)
Olausson, Lena, and Catherine Sangster. Oxford BBC Guide to Pronunciation. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2006.

shall v. will	Shall versus Will Shall and will
toward v. towards	toward, towards Toward and Towards
split infinitive	split infinitive split infinitive (American Heritage Book of English Usage on Bartleby)

How has your experience of the English language changed over time? Can you go back and remember your impressions as a beginner?

As a beginner, we just worked like a machine. The school emphasized British English—a few could read Charles Dickens because their parents were English teachers. The first few years I didn’t work hard, but toward the end of my second year suddenly American Literature became very popular in China. Faulkner, Hemingway, all the Jewish writers. We didn’t have the originals, just quotes from critics. I became fascinated and wanted to study American literature. That’s when I began to work hard, really hard on the language. You had to be able to read and write to get into a graduate program.

Then I came to this country [to Brandeis]. After a while I picked it up and it became less difficult. I could write papers. Still, there’s a difference between creative writing, writing a paper, and talking. Academic English was fine, but after the Tiananmen Massacre I decided to stay, and that’s the turning point when I really began to work to learn how to write.

The big difficulty was once I decided to write fiction. Before that, I wrote some poems. Poetry is on the one hand very demanding, very precise, accurate. On the other hand it can give some room, ambiguity. So language can occasionally be looser. I had the illusion that poetry was easier—maybe it is for a beginner. Logically speaking, all this playfulness should be based on full mastery of the language; but for a beginner very often you can go there. In fiction, there are so many levels of diction and different kinds of dialogue and tone. It was almost relearning the language, different parts of the language. That was difficult. So I read a lot. I did ask Leslie Epstein how to write and he said, “Read like hell.” [laughs]

[1] Kenner, Jessica Brilliant. “On Language and Embracing Failure as a Writer: An Interview with Ha Jin.” AGNI Online 11 Jul. 2006. 3 May 2007 <http://www.bu.edu/agni/interviews-exchanges/online/2005/jin.html>.

sentences	Sentence Variety (types, problems)
cleft sentences	What is a cleft sentence and how do we use it? What is a cleft sentence? (linguistics focus) Cleft Sentences
comma splice	The Grammar Outlaw: The Comma Splice, AKA The Sentence Splicer Fixing Comma Splices
run-on sentences	The Run-on Sentence, AKA The Sentence Masher, The Runaway Run-on Sentences
question tags	Question Tags: Study and Practice Question Tags Explained (exercise and explanation)