Spanish learning English (Guest:NCJ)

Hello, As I learn the Spanish language, I realize how tenuous a grip on English I have. I was wondering if someone could recommend a book that explains English language constructs to a native speaker. I am a computer scientist, so I struggle with the incomplete definitions that are in many grammar books written for non-nativeor young speakers; for example, defining an indirect object as:

"something that`receives' a direct action'' (see HyperGrammar) is not helpful, since it raises two questions: are all indirect objects tangible, and what exactly does "receive'' mean?

In the sentence, "Mom dressed the baby", it would seem that "the baby" could be either direct or indirect by the above definition. I understand that, unlike a formal mathematical grammar, one cannot parse English mechanically.

However, I should not be able to build a grammatically correct sentence that I cannot parse. This is especially important to me now, since I am writing a technical book with a non-native speaker and find myself making intuitive corrections to his grammar without having well-founded reasons. Any help would be appreciated.

Thank you.