Native speakers give learners shot in the arm

Native speakers of English often have trouble spelling words and sometimes
even have difficulty understanding their own language! Hardly surprising
when you consider that there are about 20,000 English words in common use,
further complicated by many thousands of technical and scientific terms.
Because English is a living entity and is not jealously guarded by some
academy, it constantly changes, as new words enter the language and old
ones fall into disuse. Many people revel in the richness of the English
vocabulary and its vast range of synonyms and love all manner of things to
do with words including etymologies, euphemisms, idiomatic expressions,
puns, spoonerisms, word games, etc.

However some learners find the range and subtleties of English daunting.
It's not hard to imagine the confusion that might result when a learner
comes across expressions like she spilled the beans, or perhaps the more
perplexing he passed the buck. Imagine a learner struggling to spell
whether (rather than weather), through (rather than threw), cough (instead
of "coff", as in doff), toe (rather than tow), etc. Clearly these brave
learners of English need all the help they can get!

With 320 million people speaking English as their main language, up to 600
million people speaking English as a second language and with many more
struggling to learn it, there is a growing need for good reference
material and teaching aids. Learners want to learn current English; they
need to learn real English, as it is written and spoken today.

COBUILD on CD-ROM integrates a special English dictionary designed for
learners (containing over 70,000 references including the most commonly
used words), excellent grammar and usage guides, plus a Word Bank which
contains S million words of authentic text selected from the Collins
COBUILD Bank of English. Providing instant access to meanings of words and
grammatical information, this immensely powerful reference tool can be
used with equal ease by beginners and researchers.

COBUILD is the Collins-Birmingham University International Database and
COBUILD is dedicated to Helping Learners with real English.

The Bank of English is a collection of current English speech and writing
comprising over 200 million words. Set up by COBUILD, the research unit
run by Collins Dictionaries and the University of Birmingham, it is
constantly updated and provides evidence for computer analysis of how
language is used and how it changes.

COBUILD on CD-ROM is just what learners and teachers of English need a shot
in the arm, you might say.

COBUILD on CD-ROM
... Helping Learners with real English

New from HarperCollins - COBUILD on CD-ROM - the ultimate reference tool
for learners of English, based on:

** Collins COBUILD English Language Dictionary over 70,000 references and
over 90,000 real examples

** Collins COBUILD English Grammar gives clear and detailed descriptions of
grammar points with real examples showing actual use

** Collins COBUILD English Usage over 2,000 usage points with thousands of
real examples

** Plus a Word Bank containing S million words derived from
Collins COBUILD Bank of English corpus

A main index lists all the headwords, phrases, inflected forms and section
headings. Powerful search capabilities include wildcards, Boolean
functions (ie AND, OR, NOT) plus global searches across all three books
and the Word Bank. Also included is a glossary of COBUILD grammatical
terms and concepts.

COBUILD on CD-ROM is designed to run on an 80386-based IBM PC (or
compatible) and requires DOS v3.1 (or higher), Microsoft Windows 3.0 (or
higher), CD-ROM drive, Microsoft CD-ROM extensions MSCDEX v2.1 (or
higher), at least 2Mb RAM (4Mb preferable) and a hard disk with at least
5Mb of free space.

COBUILD on CD-ROM is available at the special price of $119 for orders
received prior to 1 July 1994. The recommended retail price is $129
(Prices exclude C&P plus VAT).

COBUILD is the Collins-Birmingham University International Language
Database An authoritative and informative description of today's real
English

The COBUILD team is continually working on new projects aimed at
demystifying the English language. The Bank of English contains around 200
million words and continues to grow, making it the most authoritative
source available for research into today's English. COBUILD on CD-ROM
allows learners and teachers of English to get even more from the COBUILD
data.

HarperCollins Electronic Reference
14 Steep Lane, Findon, Worthing, West Sussex BN14 OUF (UK)
Tel + 44 (0)903 873 555;   Fax + 44 (0)903 873 633
Electronic mail: CompuServe 100317,1372

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