2008/05/18 0:09 渡辺米会話研究所:
Dear Mr. Clark,
We are going to make a paysite for Japanese-English translation practice. But a part of it is going to be free content of American English Grammar written in Japanese which anyone can access without paying.
We need the original descriptions for American English in the book and your corrections in computer form.
Each correction needs 10 sentences as examples and one of them should be quoted from an American governmental site or a famous American company's site to be authorized.
Sincerely,
Shoichi Watanabe

2008/05/17 7:56 GClark:
Dear Mr. Watanabe,

Ok, now I am beginning to understand what you want.

I shall await the arrival of the book and, when it arrives, I will send you an e-mail to let you know I have it.

I understand that what you want is a quote on approximately how many hours would be required to correct this book (which is for British English) so it will reflect American English usage. If this is what you want I will, of course, first need to examine the entire book in detail. If my understanding is wrong, please tell me immediately.

I assume the book you are sending to me is the same one I found on Amazon.com that costs about 60,000 Yen. If so, (according to the description on Amazon.com) it is a very large book. This could be a very big project, depending upon what you actually want from me as an end product. For this reason, I need to better understand exactly how you intend to use the finished corrected book. Today is the first time I have begun to understand what it is that you are actually seeking. But, as of now, I still do not have a complete enough understanding to know how to approach this project.

After I receive the book and have had time to examine it I really think you and I need to meet and discuss this project in some detail. Hachioji is not that far from Fussa.

I need to better understand the problem that you seek to solve by undertaking this project. Only by my thoroughly understanding what you want as an end product, and how you intend to use that end product, can I determine the best way to go about doing it. For example:

One type of end product is one copy of a school reference book, that sits on the shelf and is only used to seek answers to difficult questions from time-to-time.

A different type of end product is something you intend to make available to all the students, and for which you need several copies.

A third type of end product is to have the entire book (corrected version) in computer form so you can print as many copies as you want.

A fourth type of end product is to create an addendum to the book that covers only the corrections for American English and have only that in computer form to be printed out.

As of today, I have no idea which of these (or perhaps something entirely different) is what you have in mind. Each of these approaches is different and would require a different amount of labor to execute. This is why I need to better understand exactly what you want.

Sincerely,

G Clark

From: 渡辺米会話研究所
To: GClark
Sent: Friday, May 16, 2008 5:26 PM
Subject: Re: Thank you for your application.

Dear　Mr. Clark,
I have bought A Comprehensive Grammar of the English Language and Amazon.com is going to deliver it to you.
Probably you can find one at the XX Library, since English professors need this book.
The old version was so difficult that they would have some difficulty in understanding the description.
I happened to buy the newest version a few days ago and found the description became plain.
I suppose you wouldn't have any trouble in understanding it.
I want to know about how many hours it would take for you to correct the book for American English.
Sincerely,
Shoichi Watanabe

2008/5/16 GClark:
Mr. Watanabe,

I searched for this book on the Internet and found:

A Comprehensive Grammar of the English Language by
Randolph Quirk (Author),
Sidney Greenbaum (Author),
Geoffrey Leech (Author), and
Jan Svartvik (Author)
Published by Longman

The list price of this book is US$159.33 plus shipping. That is more than 60,000 Yen. It is available from Amazon.com from $127.46 (used) as of 16 May 2008.

This is far too high a price to pay if the only purpose is for me to study the difference between "have been to" and "have gone to" on page 194. Since you have this book, it seems to me that a far better approach would be for you to do one of the following:

1. Make a photo copy from your book of the pages involved and mail the copy to me, or

2. Scan the pages involved into an Adobe Acrobat file or a JPEG image file and send it to me as an e-mail attachment.

Later today, I will go to the XX Library and see it they have this book. However, I doubt that it will be there, as this is not the sort of book I would expect to find in a XX library.

There are several reviews of this book on Amazon.com and by reading them I learned that this is not a book intended for use in teaching English grammar. Rather, it is a scholarly reference book intended for use by those pursuing very advanced study of the language at the doctoral level. If this is so, I question the usefulness of this book in teaching English to Japanese or anyone else for whom English is not the native language.

In any case, I am happy to study the difference between "have been to" and "have gone to" in this book if you are willing to send me copies of the appropriate pages.

My Japanese postal mail address is: XXXXXXXXXX
G Clark

Please let me know what you want to do.

Regards,

GClark