This page aims to eventually contain a somewhat eclectic mix, ranging from ideas that may directly help you to more easily develop your target language (with or without our teachers), through to links to places that will help you to experience the culture surrounding it.

As we will update this area whenever time (and material!) allows, please do feel free to re-visit to see what is new whenever you have the inclination!

DIVIDED BY A COMMON LANGUAGE – A BRITISH/AMERICAN DICTIONARY

If you have ever wondered why someone wishing to learn English should opt for British rather than American English, this book can offer an answer. Two hundred pages of word comparisons, idioms & expressions, spelling & pronunciation differences and differing terminology show how wide can be the variance in the English used as a mother tongue in the different countries. The whole is quite informative and is interspersed by a nice series of ‘John Bull & Uncle Sam’ cartoons highlighting some of the variations ‘across the pond’. So, why learn British rather than American English? One answer is that we suspect that, whilst speakers of British English will find this an informative read, those speaking American English will find it much more useful. The reason for this is that, as American cinema has become more and more dominant since its inception, British English speakers can more easily comprehend American terminology etc. due to being more regularly exposed to American cinema than to their own. Conversely, it seems likely that, as Americans are likely to be so regularly acquainted only with their own cinema, their exposure to and understanding of British English is, understandably, more limited. Speakers of English as a second language who are sometimes perplexed by British expressions etc. will also find this book useful in improving their English overall.

RRP £8.50, ISBN 0-9660945-7-3.

WATCHING THE ENGLISH – THE HIDDEN RULES OF ENGLISH BEHAVIOUR

We think that this book does live up to its title – so many of this type of read are either quite mundane, inaccurate or both but the elements of Watching the English that we have read really do ring true. This publication is of the type into which you can ‘dip’ – you can flick open a random page and read a paragraph without needing to worry about not having read those that precede it. Indeed, reading the whole book from cover to cover appears quite daunting, this probably being why we haven’t done it. There are sections upon conversation and behaviour codes, humour and food rules and plenty more but the writing style is relaxed and informal, making for a lighter read that can be picked up and put down at leisure, for five minutes at a time or fifty. As a foreigner, you may well discover that Watching the English will unravel at least some of the mysteries of English attitudes and behaviour; as a native, you will probably find yourself agreeing with many of the observations therein. Whether you have just arrived in the U.K., have been living here for years or are English through and through, this book could well be for you.

RRP £8.99, ISBN 978-0-340-81886-2.

ORDNANCE SURVEY LANDRANGER MAPS

Are you new to the area or have you just arrived in the U.K. and are trying to get you bearings? If so, we can recommend Ordnance Survey Landranger Maps as each one covers a reasonably sized area with a good degree of detail. You will be able to see your particular location, along with road networks, railways & stations and almost endless features, ranging from Post Offices, public houses and historic sites, to public rights of way (footpaths & bridleways) through some outstanding scenery; you can even see the predominant type of trees in woodlands! You can preview at http://www.ordnancesurvey.co.uk/oswebsite/ but the traditional paper versions are much more visually attractive and walkers, in particular, can often be seen carry them. There is also the Explorer series but as the scale is much larger, the area covered by each one is much less than that offered by the smaller scale Landrangers. Each map retails at around £7.50 and they can make for both an interesting and useful souvenir of time spent in the area. We even know someone who likes to receive one as a birthday present as “they make a good read” although we aren’t going to advocate that you become this fixated!

OS Landranger 175 (ISBN 0319227758) covers the area from Reading to Slough and High Wycombe to Camberley (including Maidenhead & Windsor).