Review by Illios -- Idiom Attack Vol. 1 Everyday Living ...

[Illios]

[Following is a volunteer review of "Idiom Attack Vol. 1 Everyday Living (German Edition)" by Peter Liptak.]

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4 out of 4 stars

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Idiom Attack Vol. 1 Everyday Living takes a closer look at a field of studies that rarely gets the recognition it deserves in traditional language learning materials. By providing insight into 300 idioms mainly used in North America, the book makes an impressive effort to help students understand and master figurative speech and expressions used in daily conversation.

Idiom Attack is the joint effort of Peter N. Liptak and the siblings Matthew and Jay Douma. The German translation was provided by Angela Basteri. The book is divided into 25 chapters each focused on a certain theme such as household, shopping or expressions commonly heard during a phone call. Each chapter, following the introduction of all relevant phrases, provides additional exercises helping the student to solidify the learned vocabulary and their application. First, sentences with blank spaces have to be completed and a story containing all introduced idioms is given as a reading example. Further - and this feature in particular aims towards a classroom environment - the author provides questions regarding the learned material and to prompt discussions amongst students.

The book shows a great approach regarding its didactic and appears well thought over. The different exercises enable learners to apply the knowledge in reading and writing context. Further they can be practiced in a free spoken manner, that is, if the questions are discussed in a group environment. Hence, it promises a high level of remembrance if instructions are followed. The chosen idioms are well curated: There are a lot of expressions that can be observed daily in native sources while others are more specific though add a beautiful repertoire to the learner’s English once incorporated. Therefore I consider it a good source for intermediate speakers. Also it might be helpful for more advanced students, especially if their exposure to spoken language is limited or they just want to brush up on their figurative speech.

Unfortunately I did not have the opportunity to test the book in a teaching environment. Yet for the aforementioned reasons I am certain it is a viable option to enhance and supplement the class room materials. As such it might help learners to acquire natural and daily used expressions, hence improving their command of speech and eventually increasing the quality of their English considerably. Even more so as idioms are a hard yet important part of mastering languages often underrepresented if not neglected by conservative lecture.

The only aspect I felt less satisfied with was the German translation. Apparently the focus was set on translating as literal as possible. This is a viable choice and might be reasonable for helping to understand the English sentence structure. Though to me it appeared unnatural at times and thus could be more confusing than a translation focused on the meaning itself.

As this issue might be nothing more than a personal preference of mine and does not diminish the usefulness of the book, I still give Idiom Attack Vol. 1 Everyday Living a rating of 4 out of 4 stars. This rating is also due to the book’s remarkable editing since – as to be expected from language subject literature – the book was basically free of typing errors.

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Idiom Attack Vol. 1 Everyday Living (German Edition)
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[Nisha Ward]

I agree with your assessment of it's usefulness. From the sound of it, this could be quite useful for intermediate to advanced learners since idioms are neglected unless a teacher brings one up.

[Daniel_]

Sounds like a good educational book.
Nice review!