Penguin English Reader

If you want to speak a language like the inhabitants of the country, you have to know how it's used every day. Make a change from Shakespeare and Shaw, and read a newspaper article about Pop Culture, see the sort of television programmes people watch in England, listen in on a debate in Parliament, add to your collection of recipes, or hear about the generation gap.
The Penguin English Reader offers the student of the English language examples of contemporary English from the widest possible range of sources, including books, newspaper- articles, advertisements, company reports, instructional handbooks and record sleeves. Surprising, funny, shocking, informative - the passages chosen represent the language English people absorb as the day goes by.
The Penguin French Reader, Penguin Russian Reader, Penguin German Reader, Penguin Spanish Reader and Penguin Italian Reader are already available.

**Preface**
This collection of passages for the advanced student of English as a foreign language has been drawn from the widest possible range of sources to illustrate the kind of English that average English people read in their spare time, and the signs, notices, advertisements, warnings and instructions that they absorb every day.
This is the language of contemporary Britain, literary and technical, popular and traditional. It ranges from the entertaining to the extraordinary, but is always representative of today.
The advanced student may use this book for bedside reading, on train journeys, for simply dipping into, or for classroom work and discussion. The passages are not arranged in order of difficulty, but are juxtaposed to provide variety and contrast.
Glosses are given on vocabulary which is not easily found in ***The Advanced Learners' Dictionary of Current English*** by A. S. Hornby, E. V. Gatenby and H. Wakefield (Oxford University Press), and explanatory notes are given where the social or cultural references may be unfamiliar.

Albert Levine