Book Review (Silvina Nugrahwati)

BOOK REVIEW
Functional English Grammar; Memahami dan Menerapkan Tata Bahasa Inggris Lewat Eksplorasi Model dan Latihan
A. Identity
Title Functional English Grammar
Memahami dan Menerapkan Tata Bahasa Inggris Lewat Eksplorasi Model dan Latihan
Author Otong Setiawan Djuhari
Publisher Yrama Widya
Year 2008
Pages 416

B. The contents
With a well-rounded 416 pages, the book is the right size; it is not too long (so does not risk losing the reader to obscure detail) and it is not too short (so doesn’t miss fundamental and crucial structural points).
The twenty eighth chapters contain well thought out all of problems in English grammar. It begins from The Simple Sentence in the first chapter until Construction in the last chapter.
In the first until seventh chapter we as a reader ask to get acquainted with the simple way before we are going to learn more complex grammar. On those chapters, the author try to introduce how to use English in simple way using simple structure; The Simple Sentence, Subject-Verb Agreement, Noun and Noun Phrase, Verb Phrase and Auxiliaries, Non-Finite Verbs, Active and Passive Voice, and Derivation and Modifiers.
Then, if we want to learn more about grammar in use not only on the simple grammar above, but also in the complex grammar, we can learn more in the eighth chapters until twenty eighth chapters; Compound and Complex Sentences, Noun Clause and Adjective Clause, Shortened Forms of Adjective Clauses and Adverbial Clauses, Imperative and Interrogative Sentences, Cleft Sentences and Inversion, Parallelism, Definite and Indefinite Articles, Comparison, Pronoun, Conditional, Subjunctive, Direct-Indirect Speech, Elliptical Construction, Question Tag, Preference, Preposition, Prepositional Collocation, Linking Verbs, Exclamation, Causative, and Contraction
C. Who’s This Book for?
When I had read this book in the preface, I could catch to whom the author made this book. On his preface, he said that this book was supposed to help the need of the various academic, especially collage student.
The author wants to make the collage students introduce Standard English Written Structure, and lead them to use English not only in grammatically and logically correct.
D. Assessment
1) Pros
This book is a proper book for students and various academic. Because it can make easy to learn because of its concept through a lot of exercise and model exploration. It also can be used by the people who learn English the first time, because the explanation uses Bahasa.
2) Cons
Actually, this book is good and I know that the author give the easy way to understand grammar through exercises and model exploration. But, the editor have to be careful to edit the book especially grammar; because if there were mistakes even one, it will make a big problem for the reader. For example in 135 pages about passive voice;
• Indonesian Citizen expect that the crisis will soon be over.
That the crisis will soon be over is expect by Indonesian students.
If the reader does not know whether it true or false, the reader will be confuse and make wrong interpretation. So, the editor have to be more careful of this point.