Book-Review: English Bites! My 'Fullproof' English Learning Formula by Manish Gupta

English is a beautiful and fascinating language. A very helpful medium to communicate. But it’s not so easy (At least for some people). People can be good in written English but they may falter in spoken English. Fluency in English speaking needs confidence minus hesitation and it enhances confidence minus hesitation.

I generally don’t read self-help books. When the author Manish Gupta approached me for the review of his debut book English Bites!, I was a bit skeptical. But as I said English is a fascinating language, it stirred the second thought. I read some really nice reviews and decided to go for it.

It’s true that learning is an unending process and this book proves it yet again.  

English Bites tells about the author’s English learning experience and thankfully it’s not written in a preachy way. It’s a light read. Tells you some interesting anecdotes based on the author’s keen observation and experience (which may seem quite identifiable to beginners). Moreover you don’t have to consult dictionary because the book carries a nice dictionary in the form of footnotes. But it’s not just for beginners. It will promote your brewing desire to learn this language as the publisher (Penguin India) says that the author is now very fluent in English and has a very good command over this language (This book is a perfect example). 

Here the author shares some interesting  techniques to improve this language. The book promises that you will learn thousands of new words. I am not sure about the number of words to learn as it depends on the knowledge of an individual reader, but yes you will learn for sure. 

Difficult / unusual) words are highlighted that makes the book easy to read. You will  learn some new words (You may know the meaning of some highlighted words) and this book will  help you to revive your memory as sometimes we tend to forget the meaning of some learned words (I used to highlight the words in the dictionary so that I could meet those words easily while turning the pages of dictionary every time.) The assignments like oxymorons and words without vowels are interesting. Woman-husband example of epigram is funny.

Overall, I would say its a very decent and intelligent attempt/compilation.  I would suggest every one to read (And keep in the collection) this book (not in just one go necessarily as its not fiction, so you may not want to finish it in just one go). It's a 'must have' for aspiring writers. It was a good learning experience.

If I have to point out something negative about  this book. I would say that the book cover could have been a bit vivid and I found some words too vast to use in general English specially spoken  English. In this book, the author tells about his college/school life. I think, college life has a lot of spicy, interesting, funny and exciting stories so, the author could have added such incidents to make this book more interesting/fun. 

I received this book from the author for a brutally honest review! Thanks!

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