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Have you ever been frustrated, aggravated, irritated, upset, disturbed, annoyed, bothered, perturbed or discouraged when you are trying to write a decent paragraph in the English language, and suddenly found out that you are not sure of the grammar rules, and it is hard to locate that wizard to tell you once and for all whether you should place a comma here or there? You probably look into your dictionary first and scream out loud or yell at the innocent computer screen because the information you are looking for is not there. Do not panic or dread; help is on the way. This book is an attempt to give you a summary of resources when it comes to grammar in layperson's language. With the index in the back of the book, you will be able to easily and effortlessly locate what you want to look up and find the answer right at your fingertips. Speaking from previous English knowledge, skills, practices, understandings, familiarities and know-how, I realize that sometimes the more grammar books you read, the more confused you get. There are tons of grammar books out there, but upon which one can you rely? There are contradictions constantly when you read more than one grammar book. One book will tell you to use an 's' after 2005s to execute plurality; others may not recommend the same. In addition, languages are animate. They change all the time. They can get sick and die, and they can have newly generated sounds and words. Language has a life. Born and raised in Bangkok, Thailand, English was taught to me at an early age, but it was taught as a foreign language, where there were only a few English classes per week. I did not have the opportunity of being in a bilingual environment. I struggled and studied hard. My parents made sure that I received a great education. English was taught to me by so many teachers and professors from many different countries, some of whom were not native speakers of the English language. I received many different grammar rules that often confused me, but as I acquired more education, things started to become clearer. As an undergraduate student in Bangkok, I majored in English and double-minored in Linguistics and Psychology. I continued my studies at the University of Illinois Graduate School in Linguistics and Teaching English as a Second Language in the United States. Suddenly, I became an English professor. I received my master's degree in January, and, in the same month, I started teaching at a university. In my profession, there are ESL and EIL. I would like to clarify the abbreviations ESL and EIL. ESL stands for English as a Second Language. EIL stands for English as an International Language. There are also other terms such as ESOL (English for Speakers of Other Languages) and EFL (English as a Foreign Language). Even though English is not the most spoken language in the world, it has, indeed, become international, used by hundreds of millions of people every day. So, I will attempt to write this book from an angle of one who has 'been there and done that'. In other words, I have been an ESL/EIL student and an ESL/EIL professor. I still learn new things about English grammar on a daily basis. There are so many rules out there, but it is fun to continue to learn. One should never stop learning, period! I have been teaching ESL/EIL for over three decades. I have always sympathized with my students as I have seen them struggle to gain command of the English language. My background as an ESL/EIL student and as an ESL/EIL teacher, hopefully, has helped my students a great deal. I have also learned a lot from my students. Therefore, this book is a compilation of what I have learned throughout the years, first as a little girl, as an ESL/EIL student, and now as an ESL/EIL professor.
