Learning English — References and Exam Preparation

Q: Do I have to buy anything for learn english?

No. This site covers the same ground for free — 英语学习中心 — free English tools for Chinese speakers, CET-4/6, 考研, IELTS and TOEFL word lists, free, Free English-to-IPA annotator — and those pages need no account and cost nothing. The items on this page are for the things a website cannot be.

Q: Are these ranked by what they pay you?

No, and they structurally cannot be: the data record behind a recommendation on this site has no field for a commission, a rate or a partner, so the ordering cannot follow the money. Every item is ordered by who the reader is.

Q: Why is there no price shown?

Because we have no licensed way to keep a price current, and a stale price on a page like this is worse than none. Cost is shown as a band instead — budget, mid-range or premium.

For Chinese speakers going the other way: the grammar reference and exam books that are worth it.

Free on this site, right now

This half of the site teaches English to Chinese speakers — word lists for CET-4, CET-6, 考研, IELTS and TOEFL, an IPA annotator, a daily sentence and a set of games — all free. The books below are the small number that add something those cannot: a grammar reference detailed enough to answer the awkward question, and official exam practice written by the people who set the papers.

One caution specific to exam preparation. Unofficial practice tests are abundant, cheap and frequently misleading: they misjudge the difficulty, mark to a different standard, and give a band score that will not match the one you get. For IELTS and TOEFL, buy only material published by the examining body. The practice is worth less than the accurate expectation it sets.

Every item below says what it does not do. Nothing is ordered by what it pays — see how this page is written.

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Showing every level in this category.

Intermediate Mid-range

English Grammar in Use

Raymond Murphy · Cambridge University Press

The most widely used English grammar book in the world, and the format is why: one grammar point per two-page spread, explanation on the left, exercises on the right, answers in the back. You can use it for fifteen minutes without committing to a course. For Chinese speakers it is especially good on the two areas Chinese gives no help with at all — articles, and the tense and aspect system — which between them account for most marked errors.

What it does not do: It is a reference and a drill book, not a course: no reading, no listening, and nothing that teaches you to produce a paragraph. The exercises are fill-in-the-blank and will not prepare you for a speaking test.

Free here first: Free English grammar quiz

Look it up on amazon.ca

Advanced Premium

Practical English Usage

Michael Swan · Oxford University Press

The book to own when you already know the rules and keep meeting sentences that break them. It is organised around the specific problems learners actually have — over 600 entries answering questions like whether you may say this, and what difference it makes if you say that instead — and it is honest about where usage is genuinely divided rather than pretending English is tidier than it is. Indispensable for anyone writing English professionally.

What it does not do: Almost useless below upper-intermediate: it answers questions you have to be good enough to ask. No exercises at all, and it is a thick expensive reference that will be consulted rather than read.

Free here first: Free IPA annotator for any English text

Look it up on amazon.ca

Advanced Mid-range

Cambridge IELTS Academic practice tests

Cambridge University Press

These are past papers, which makes them categorically different from every third-party practice book: the difficulty, the question types and the mark scheme are the real ones, so the score you get is the score you would get. Buy the most recent volume you can and save at least two complete tests to sit under proper timed conditions near your exam date — the timing is what most candidates underestimate, not the English.

What it does not do: It teaches nothing. There is no instruction, no strategy and no explanation of why a wrong answer was wrong — it is a measuring instrument, and you need a separate book or a teacher to actually improve.

Free here first: Free IELTS and TOEFL word lists

Look it up on amazon.ca

Expert Mid-range

Official TOEFL iBT Tests, Volumes 1 and 2

ETS · McGraw Hill

Published by ETS, who set the test, and that is the entire reason to choose it over the many cheaper alternatives. Ten full retired tests across the two volumes with real scored writing and speaking responses at each band — seeing an actual answer that scored 4 beside one that scored 3 tells you more about what is being measured than any amount of advice about it, because the difference is rarely what candidates assume.

What it does not do: Practice material only, with minimal teaching. It also assumes an already advanced level — if you are below roughly CET-6, working through TOEFL papers will measure a gap rather than close it.

Free here first: Free TOEFL word list and self-test

Look it up on amazon.ca

Intermediate Mid-range

Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary

Oxford University Press

A learner's dictionary defines words using a controlled vocabulary of about three thousand common words, so a definition never sends you to another dictionary — and that single design decision makes it far more useful to a learner than any dictionary written for native speakers. It also marks which words are common enough to be worth learning, and gives the collocations and example sentences that a Chinese-English glossary cannot.

What it does not do: Monolingual, which is a real barrier below upper-intermediate — if you are translating in your head, a bilingual dictionary is faster. It also will not help with the specialised vocabulary of an academic field.

Free here first: 每日英语一句 — free daily English sentence

Look it up on amazon.ca