Book review: The English Tenses — practical grammar guide

I am surprised and disturbed by so many positive reviews of this book by American readers starting with something like “No one taught me this at school, this book finally did”. This tells a lot about English language education in the U.S.

Indeed, when many schools still use Whole Language method, the students barely learn to read yet alone to learn formal grammar.

Anyway, before deciding whether I wanted to buy this book by Phil Williams, I found a portion of it online on the author’s website. The author says that it is about one fourth of the whole book, dedicated to the past tense.

In chapter 4.2 I read this:

For example, the past perfect is usually used to discuss visited locations, because experiences in different locations continue to affect us now, and can be added to, such as “I have been to France.”

Well, “I have been to France” is present perfect, not past perfect. Also “usually used” is simply bad busy buzzing style that shows that the book has not been copyedited.

Similarly, we use the past perfect to say “I have seen this movie.”

Again, “I have seen” is present perfect, not past perfect. These mistakes are inexplicable for someone claiming to be an expert in English language.

The occasional images are dorky, likely made by an amateur artist, take extra space — just like I am doing here — and provide little additional information. Some of them are unintentionally surrealistic, like levitating plates on the picture below.

Other pictures are not suitable for children, like a dramatic close-up of a body in a big puddle of blood.

With the mistakes fixed and the images improved, this could become a decent introduction to English tenses. As is, it is just too sloppy and cringe-worthy to spend money on it.