**I received two lessons of Word Workout for free. All opinions are my own.**
★★★★★ (5 out of 5)
As a writer (of this blog and my ever in-progress novel), you'd think grammar would be a breeze for me. Alas, that is not the case. My 9th grade teacher can attest to the fact that all of these strange grammar rules confound me, so I was more than happy to listen to the first two levels of Word Workout by Charles Harrington Elster.
Although this audiobook has more to do with vocabulary, which I'm pretty good at if I do say so myself, I was pleased to find that in between lessons of 10 words there were "Style Files" about grammar, like a short lesson on the oxford comma and the difference between presume and assume.
I may be pretty good at vocabulary, but I still learned a lot. I knew most of the words (some of which were depravity, voracious, anachronistic, rapacious, florid), but there were a few that were new to me, like diatribe, poen, gaffe, and impresario. One of my favorite parts is when Elster goes into the etymology of the word, such as, "Depravity began as the shorter word pravity, which came to English in the 16th century through Middle French pravite from the Latin pravatas, crookedness, irregularity, deformity."
Two other things I liked about this audiobook: 1. The fun quizzes at the end of each 10 word lesson. Yes, I did answer them out loud while driving in my car. 2. Charles Harrington Elster's soothing and professorial voice. His voice makes it easy to pay attention and makes it seem like you're taking a fun college class.
Want to expand your vocabulary? I would definitely recommend this audiobook!
Buy the book: Amazon | Goodreads
