Although gerunds are covered in a few different ways across a few CEFR levels in the English Grammar Profile, there is no entry given to the use of a gerund after ‘need’ as MODALITY which is listed by PEARSON:
GSE 63 B2
‘need’ with verbs in the gerund to express necessity.
‘need’ + Verb Phrase gerund
An iWeb search for:
NEED _VVG
1 NEED REPLACING 4648 2 NEEDS REPLACING 3393 3 NEEDS UPDATING 1371 4 NEED UPDATING 963
5 NEEDS ADDRESSING 785
6 NEED ADJUSTING 769
7 NEED CHANGING 753 8 NEEDS USING 751 9 NEED REMINDING 743 10 NEED USING 673 11 NEED CLEANING 618 12 NEEDS ADJUSTING 577 13 NEEDED USING 547 14 NEEDED REPLACING 542 15 NEEDS TWEAKING 494 16 NEEDS CHANGING 411 17 NEEDS LOOKING 390 18 NEEDS CLEANING 379 19 NEEDS ACCORDING 377 20 NEED READING 359 21 NEED PROTECTING 355 22 NEEDS SORTING 352 23 NEED TRIMMING 349 24 NEED ADDRESSING 340 25 NEED PLANNING 324 26 NEEDS REPAIRING 319 27 NEED TWEAKING 316 28 NEED WATERING 300 29 NEEDS FIXING 298 30 NEED WORKING 276 31 NEED ACCORDING 273 32 NEED LOOKING 264 33 NEEDS UPGRADING 261 34 NEED EXPLAINING 256 35 NEED GOING 252 36 NEED MOVING 252 37 NEED REMOVING 250 38 NEEDS ARISING 243 39 NEED STAKING 243 40 NEEDS SAYING 238 41 NEED FIXING 235 42 NEEDS CHECKING 216 43 NEED RESCUING 212 44 NEED REPAIRING 210 45 NEEDS RANGING 209 46 NEED UPGRADING 208 47 NEED SORTING 205 48 NEEDS EXPLAINING 205 49 NEEDS REMOVING 198
A present tense expresses an action that is happening now or done habitually or a state that currently or generally exists.
‘Present’ can also be used with a perfect aspect that somehow relates to the ‘past.’
In the English Grammar Profile, B2 point 64 in the category of PAST is: present perfect continuous NEGATIVE It basically means that something did not happen between an unspecified time before now and now and that has a result in the present. This situation might still continue now. We look for examples with a search […]
present perfect continuous negative Read More »
B2 English Grammar Profile point 61 in the category of PAST is defined as: negative form of the present perfect simple with ‘still’ to emphasise that something that was expected to happen continues not to happen. An iWeb search for: still have|has _xx _vvn 1 STILL HAVE N’T FOUND 1847 2 STILL HAVE N’T GOTTEN
STILL + present perfect simple negative ‘still haven’t found’ Read More »
B2 PAST | adverbs in the normal mid position present perfect progressive
English Grammar Profile
present perfect continuous + adverb Read More »
In the English Grammar Profile, B2 point 51 in the category of PAST and present perfect simple is defined as: question form with an increasing range of verbs. For example: How much sleep have they actually lost? TED Looking for variable-length questions on iWeb is always a hard task. Here is only one set pattern that finds some. Note that we
present perfect simple questions + increasing range of verbs Read More »
In the English Grammar Profile, B2 point 27 in the category of PASSIVES is defined as: present perfect simple passive affirmative Here’s an example from englishclass101.com: Traditionally, these meetings have been held Wednesday at noon, every other week. Here are 50 head verbs that go in the present perfect simple passive affirmative verb phrase from the iWeb corpus. 1
present perfect simple passive affirmative Read More »
Here are some sentences of PRESENT CONTINUOUS AFFIRMATIVE PASSIVE, using the most common B1 past participles: Accepted: The new employee is being accepted by the team. The proposal is being accepted by the board of directors. Applied: The job application is being applied for by the candidate. The paint is being applied to the wall.
present continuous passive + range of verbs Read More »
Let’s look at two expert examples of ‘BE + adverbs of indefinite frequency + VERBing‘: At the time of application for Russian citizenship, the spouses must be permanently residing in Russia and must be married for three years. Russia Beyond – 16 Feb 2021 There are a few ways to approach loved ones who are persistently asking the same question. elmcroft.com The first example above is a modal verb + BE + adverb + present participle and the second
present continuous + adverbs of indefinite frequency Read More »
‘WH-‘ questions expect a reply that supplies information. The wh-word can be a pronoun: What made you think that? (listen to this question) adverb: Where did it go? (listen) or a determiner: Which part? (listen) A search for the most common questions in the iWeb corpus with: _ddq _v _p _v ? 1 WHAT DO YOU THINK? (‘what’
WH questions Read More »
Adverbs of indefinite frequency, such as ‘sometimes’, ‘occasionally’, ‘usually’, ‘normally’, ‘regularly’, and ‘often’, are commonly used with the present simple tense to indicate routine or repeated activities without specifying exact timing. These adverbs typically precede the main verb but follow the verb ‘to be’ and auxiliary verbs. They can also be positioned at the beginning or end of a sentence in some cases. The webpage provides examples of these usages in various contexts, including TED talks and student writings.
In contrast, definite adverbs of frequency, like ‘yearly’, ‘weekly’, ‘every hour’, and ‘every day’, provide exact frequencies and usually appear at the end of a sentence. The webpage also highlights the overlap and differences in the usage of these adverbs at different language proficiency levels (A1 and A2).
Furthermore, it presents common collocates for the adverb ‘usually’ and examples of sentences using ‘often’. The examples illustrate common behaviors or thought processes, suggesting that these adverbs are integral to expressing frequency in English.
PRESENT SIMPLE with ADVERBS of FREQUENCY Read More »
In the English Grammar Profile, point 15 in the category of PASSIVES at B2 is PRESENT CONTINUOUS, NEGATIVE. This clashes for usage with point 34 at C1: present continuous passive negative form to refer to ongoing situations in the present. _vb _xx being _vvn 1 IS NOT BEING USED 3339 2 ARE NOT BEING USED
present continuous passive negative Read More »
These constructions allow for the formation of negative questions by adding the negative contractions (“don’t” or “doesn’t” for “do,” and “haven’t” or “hasn’t” for “have”) before the subject and the base form or past participle of the main verb. This structure is particularly useful for seeking confirmation or clarification when expressing negation.
Don’t you think ? | Haven’t you heard ? Read More »
Here are some student writing examples of present continuous highlighted with details: I am typing English words right now. PELIC Chinese female level 2 writing class However, we also can interpret from the graph that we aren’t preparing for it yet. PELIC Korean female level 3 writing class I am always falling over one of his toy cars or trucks. PELIC Arabic male level 3 writing class There are at least 30 points to do with the present
Present Continuous Read More »
Present continuous is best given a CEFR level by lexical VERBing in the English Vocabulary Profile. The English Grammar Profile has many levels that are mostly based on range. There is also a point at C1 for rhetorical questions with present continuous. B2 point 45 in the category of FUTURE with present continuous is defined
When the object and the subject refer to the same person or thing, the direct object is a ‘reflexive‘ pronoun.
FOUND MYSELF THINKING | FIND THEMSELVES FACING | SEE HIMSELF PLAYING | KEEP ITSELF WAITING | DEFENDED HIMSELF SAYING
lexical verb + reflexive pronoun + verbING Read More »
The verb ‘assert’ is C1 in the English Vocabulary Profile: [T] FORMAL to say that something is certainly true ‘assert yourself’ is C2: to behave or speak in a strong, confident way For example: Bright Side Of The Sun The Suns began to assert themselves midway through the fourth. or ‘assert your authority/control/independence, etc.’ is also C2: to do something
assert Read More »
And it‘s not because you‘re not smart enough, it‘s simply that you don’t apply yourself. Another Woman The reflexive pronoun “yourself” is used as the direct object of the verb “apply.” The verb “apply” means “to use or put something to a particular purpose.” In the sentence, the speaker is telling the listener to use their own efforts or abilities to achieve a goal.
VERB + myself | yourself | himself | itself | herself Read More »
Myself, yourself, himself, herself, itself, ourselves, yourselves and themselves are called reflexive pronouns. They are used when the subject and the object of a sentence are the same. For example:
I cut myself when I was making dinner. She looked at herself in the mirror.
They enjoyed themselves at the party.
himself | herself | myself | yourself Read More »
Point 119 in PRONOUNS/reflexive is defined as: ‘as for myself’ as a discourse marker to introduce or focus on a personal opinion. FOR EXAMPLE: As for myself, I have some ideas about where we went wrong this time, and one day I may call on you once more. listen TechRaptor As for myself, I am an artist in the loosest possible definition of the word; that is to say, I make art. 16 Dec 2020 A search in iWeb corpus for: . As
As for myself Read More »
Plural reflexive pronouns are used when the subject of the sentence is plural. For example, in the sentence “The children played by themselves,” the plural reflexive pronoun “themselves” refers back to the subject “children.”
Prepositions are words that show the relationship between a noun or pronoun and another word in the sentence. For example, in the sentence “The children played by themselves,” the preposition “by” shows the relationship between the noun “children” and the pronoun “themselves.”
preposition + plural reflexive Read More »
Point 93 in the category of PRONOUNS / reflexive is defined as singular pronoun ‘itself’ for emphasis. An iWeb search for _nn1 itself: 1 GAME ITSELF 15067 2 LIFE ITSELF 10893 3 CITY ITSELF 7443 4 SYSTEM ITSELF 7390 5 PROCESS ITSELF 7192 6 PRODUCT ITSELF 6909 7 BUILDING ITSELF 5512 8 DEVICE ITSELF 4694
noun + ITSELF (emphasis) Read More »
Here are two B2 points in the English Grammar Profile in the category of PRONOUNS: Point 80: plural reflexive pronouns for emphasis. Point 83: plural reflexive pronouns to refer to actions where the subject and object of the verb are the same. This overlaps many other reflexive pronoun points and ’emphasis’ is not something
plural reflexive pronouns Read More »
Point 77 in the category of PRONOUNS is defined as: the reflexive pronoun ‘itself’ with ‘by’ to mean alone or without any help. collocates 4 spaces either side of ‘by itself’ in iWeb include: 1 ENOUGH 1922 2 CLASS 1155 3 SUFFICIENT 780 4 STAND 558 1416 5 MULTIPLIED 455 6 STANDS 366 7 MULTIPLY
by itself Read More »
In the English Grammar Profile, B2 point 75 in the category of PRONOUNS is defined as: the plural reflexive pronoun ‘yourselves’ for politeness. The three examples in the EGP include a preposition before ‘yourselves’. And reflexive pronouns after a preposition are generally B2 already under other criteria. A search in NOW corpus for: * *
yourselves Read More »
The fixed expression “in itself” is used as an intensifier to emphasize the inherent qualities or significance of the subject matter.
in itself Read More »
A search in iWeb for the word “ONE” shows us 6 different tags. 1 ONE (MC1) 24583449 (number) 1 . ONE OF THE 217127 2 THIS IS ONE OF THE 109499 3 TO BE ONE OF THE 88041 4 IT IS ONE OF THE 66555 5 IT ‘S ONE OF THE 42852 It‘s one of the worst crimes of
NO ONE Read More »
Using a reflexive pronoun with the GET passive suggests the subject was at least partly responsible for making something happen.
GET + reflexive pronoun + past participle Read More »
Here at EnglishGrammar.Pro, we are always looking for new resources that position language features on the CEFR scale. Note that, unlike Cambridge which uses what students can produce, Oxford uses the receptive knowledge of students to allocate the levels. One great resource is their phrase list. The Oxford Phrase List is a list of 750 […]
OXFORD + CEFR Read More »
In this post, we put common lexical bundles that French EFL students use in their writing, through our GRAMMAR PROFILER. Magali Paquot wrote a paper about Lexical bundles. Here are the significant forms found in the ICLE – FR: Here are our expert examples: You‘ll be tempted to tear it off. listen They may never be considered as such by religion, but they are just as important as the ones in your textbooks. listen Kaleb‘s art can be viewed as deeply rooted in the pop minimalism of Aureur or Baer.
English lexical bundles and their most frequent equivalent forms in French Read More »
The following piece of writing was given to me to give feedback and I used the complexity checker to help me decide this is B2 at least. Emily‘s Letter 12/12/2020 Hey Paul, The view from here looks great; I can see all the roads that we‘ve walked around, the park where we first shared our first kiss and that pink cafe where you proposed [to] me for marriage. Thinking of our happy moments makes me want to change my decision of falling from this skyscraper. The day I told you I was pregnant made us both proud parents and Jules became the love of our lives. I thought everything was going to be perfect, but life is not a happy picnic. Flash forward into our lives and you have changed, you ignored Jules who was sixteen. When you came home, you and I would fight about everything. I still have a scar on my right cheek when you pushed me to the closet after we fought about how you forgot our anniversary. That scar still hurts me and makes me question if I wasn’t good enough for you. On 16 May 2019, we received a call from Jules’ teacher who told us that Jules overdosed on drugs. We both failed as parents and you blamed Jules’ death on me. We played the ugly blame game and you just left with your things. You never showed up and when you sent in those divorce papers, I had to painfully sign it. A year passed by and I would wake up to face the living nightmares.
writing feedback 2 from Bhutan Read More »
I was given some writing from Egypt to check. The person who submitted it said that the level is C1. I put it through the free grammar profiler and it gave me the following information. It predicted that this writing is actually C2. Dear Parents, I hope you are doing well. Actually, I appreciate your son‘s participation and good behavior, however, I have noticed that he is still dramatically struggling with some language features, so I tailored an intervention plan to handle his needs and elevate his level. Here are some home [work]
Feedback using the profiler Read More »
I was given some writing to check. The person who submitted it said that their level is C1. I put it through the free grammar profiler and gave me the following information. It predicted that this writing is actually C2. Dear Parents, I hope you are doing well. Actually, I appreciate your son‘s participation and good behavior, however, I have noticed that he is still dramatically struggling with some language features, so I tailored an intervention plan to handle his needs and elevate his level. Here are some home [work] tasks and activities which [should|might|will]
Free writing feedback Read More »
First, I’d like to say that I love using the following resource with my ESL classes. However, I was recently interested to see how the website “Breaking News English” adds levels to their texts. I know it is not easy to take news items and then bring them down to an English learner’s level for
Breaking News English Read More »
I am attracted to The FUSE (The Finnish Upper Secondary School Corpus of Spoken English) because it is rare to find CEFR level spoken corpus texts. What I instantly find from the B2 students below is that the complexity checker is not calibrated to spoken texts. Firstly, sentences are broken up with various codes which
Finnish Spoken corpus Read More »
When ESL teachers look at student texts they often intuitively notice like all native speakers of a language that which is inaccurate. Yet, B1 is the level that most General English students are in and are also taking on most of the new language and also making most the errors. It is easy to mark
Level 3 Writing in PELIC Read More »
I am always looking for true learner texts to see how the complexity checker will perform. EnglishGrammar.Pro is very lucky to have access to a very large and clearly documented learner corpus. PELIC is based on data collected from students at the English Language Institute (ELI) at the University of Pittsburgh from 2005-2012…. The IEP data include
Pittsburgh learner corpus & complexity checker Read More »
How do I predict the writing level using the pie chart in the ‘complexity checker‘ software? C2 language from CLC If more than 33% of a text is highlighted above A2 then it is probably from a C2 or proficient English writer. Or in other words, 66% of it is not basic A1 and A2.
complexity pies Read More »
In this post, we use the British council comments section and see how the students have chosen for themselves which level they would reply to. This is not empirical research. Students can just reply to writing activities that they want to online. A1 Her mom’s name is Maryma. We see that the ‘complexity checker‘ incorrectly
complexity check of A1-C1 paragraphs Read More »
What level is your grammar & vocabulary? Well do some writing and this app will let you know!
Now that we have looked briefly at what educational research is, it’s time to get more specific about one of the qualitative designs. Ethno means people and graphy is writing, so this is writing about groups of people. It comes from cultural anthropology or writing about culture. This could include their thoughts, the rules of their behaviours, the way they talk etc. An important term here is how they share “Culture.” This includes the language, politics and much more. An ethnographer needs to spend time in the “field” to collect this data so that they can get an understanding of bigger problems surrounding the representative group. (p.474)
In the 1990s, the perspective of researchers changed around the problems of representation, such as the researcher being only one of many voices, and legitimacy. This is harder to understand, but basically multiple perspectives need to be drawn on, and not just building on some sort of neat canon. (p.475)
There are three main types:
A realist study tries to be objective with facts with a stance in the third person. It avoids reflections. (p.476)
Case studies are a bit different to ethnography. It may be about an individual. It could be about a process. A bounded system which has boundaries of time or space etc. It could be an intrinsic case in that it is interesting in itself or instrumental where a special issue is highlighted by a number of cases. Finally, it could also be called a collective case study because there are a number of cases on the same issue.
Critical ethnography attempts to free oppressed groups in society and will go deeply into the politics and ideologies behind issues. This researcher will be very careful about how they affect the group they study.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6lIzz3DlEWQ
References
Creswell, J., & Guetterman, T. (2019). Educational research : planning, conducting, and evaluating quantitative and qualitative research (Sixth edition.). New York, NY: Pearson.
There are more than 10 ways ‘far‘ is used in English grammar. We’ve also explained the superlative of ‘far‘ elsewhere. In this post, we are looking at how the phrase ‘by far‘ means ‘by a great amount‘. Remember that ‘by far‘ changes the strength of the superlative adjective that comes after it. When we use it together with a superlative phrase, for example, ‘the most popular,‘ the whole meaning is: ‘… is the most popular by a great amount.’
Let’s explain this with an easy example. Imagine you have 10 friends with mobile phones. 7 friends have an iPhone, 2 friends have a Samsung, and 1 friend has a Nokia. We can say the iPhone is the most popular. But we can be more detailed to say that 70% is much more than 20% or 10%. Therefore we can say: “iPhones are the most popular by far.” or “iPhones are by far the most popular.”
Here are examples from movies:
You are by far the most brilliant mind in this chat room.
He is by far the most brilliant man I have ever met.
Listen to the pronunciation.
Here are 50 examples we found by searching in iWeb corpus for:
by far the * *
1 BY FAR THE MOST POPULAR 3984
It’s by far the most popular choice.
On the right are the most common collocations:
1 CHOICE (NN1 ) 168 2 TYPE (NN1 ) 111
3 AMONG (II ) 99
4 OPTION (NN1 ) 96
5 METHOD (NN1 ) 56
2 BY FAR THE MOST COMMON 3761
1 TYPE (NN1 ) 333
2 CAUSE (NN1 ) 252 3 FORM (NN1 ) 158 4 REASON (NN1 ) 90
4 BY FAR THE BEST. 1636 5 BY FAR THE BEST WAY 1287 6 BY FAR THE EASIEST WAY 815 7 BY FAR THE BEST I 805
8 BY FAR THE MOST EFFECTIVE 705
9 BY FAR THE BEST AND 601 10 BY FAR THE MOST EXPENSIVE 582 11 BY FAR THE BEST OF 556 12 BY FAR THE MOST DIFFICULT 515 13 BY FAR THE MOST INTERESTING 501 14 BY FAR THE MOST COMFORTABLE 493 15 BY FAR THE MOST POWERFUL 485 16 BY FAR THE BEST ONE 448 17 BY FAR THE MOST SUCCESSFUL 448 18 BY FAR THE BEST, 438 19 BY FAR THE BEST OPTION 435 20 BY FAR THE BEST THING 433 21 BY FAR THE BEST IN 424 22 BY FAR THE BEST! 417 23 BY FAR THE EASIEST TO 413 24 BY FAR THE BEST VALUE 392 25 BY FAR THE MOST COMMONLY 382 26 BY FAR THE EASIEST AND 381 27 BY FAR THE BEST PLACE 324
28 BY FAR THE MOST SIGNIFICANT 311
29 BY FAR THE MOST WIDELY 301
31 BY FAR THE MOST LIKELY 290
32 BY FAR THE LARGEST AND 289
33 BY FAR THE MOST IMPRESSIVE 287 34 BY FAR THE BEST PART 285 35 BY FAR THE MOST FAMOUS 284 36 BY FAR THE BEST CHOICE 278 37 BY FAR THE MOST COMPREHENSIVE 271 38 BY FAR THE MOST USEFUL 265 39 BY FAR THE MOST EFFICIENT 264 40 BY FAR THE MOST FUN 261 41 BY FAR THE WORLD ‘S 243 42 BY FAR THE WORST. 240 43 BY FAR THE LARGEST OF 238 44 BY FAR THE BEST EXPERIENCE 237 45 BY FAR THE MOST BEAUTIFUL 234 46 BY FAR THE BEST FOR 224 47 BY FAR THE MOST CHALLENGING 198 48 BY FAR THE MOST DANGEROUS 194 49 BY FAR THE MOST VALUABLE 191
50 BY FAR THE MOST EXCITING 186
This B2 vocabulary is often found in the ‘by far + superlative’ construction:
effective, impressive, significant, widely
Watch and listen to one last expert example: He’s by far the happiest man.
Click here to try our QUIZ to keep learning about the most common real ‘by far superlative‘ examples.
16/01/2021 They all relate to storing energy from the sun and clouds, in batteries, containers and food. In my opinion, the best place to store water is in the vegetables that you will eat. Food such as cucumbers and tomatos are mostly water and I am guessing eating enough of them a day you could
The direct object normally comes after the verb. ‘You eat sushi.’
However, the direct object is fronted in WH- questions: ‘What did you eat?’ and in some relative clauses: ‘Sushi is what I ate.’
Using noun phrases as objects of the clause helps provide more information about the action or state described by the verb in a sentence. It helps answer questions about the direct recipients of the verb’s action or the entities affected by it.
noun phrase (direct object) Read More »
In the English Grammar Profile, A2 point 18 in the category of VERBS/patterns is defined as: reporting verbs, especially mental process verbs, with a clause as the direct object, without ‘that’, especially in informal contexts. For example: I hope you are doing well. *notably, in the English Grammar Profile examples, all the verbs but ‘said’ are in the present
reporting verbs Read More »
The following two B1 points are only different in the order. Point 4 in REPORTED SPEECH is defined as: DIRECT SPEECH, REPORTING CLAUSE, INITIAL POSITION: report speech and thought directly, using the reporting verb before the reporting clause Point 9 is END POSITION: report speech and thought directly using the reporting verb after the reporting
DIRECT SPEECH (initial or end position) Read More »
This post contains an example of overlapping B1 grammar points located inside two different categories in the English Grammar Profile (EGP). EGP B1 point 6 in the category of REPORTED SPEECH is defined as: REPORTED REQUESTS AND COMMANDS with ‘ask’ or ‘tell’ + direct object and ‘to-‘infinitive EGP B1 point 38 in the category of
VERB + DIRECT OBJECT + to INFINITIVE Read More »
In the English Grammar Profile, C2 point 62 in the category of VERBS is defined as: direct object with some prepositional verbs as well as an object of the preposition. *As with other phrasal verb grammar points, this one is also best dealt with through the EVP. For example, here is C2 grammar and C2
Point 15 in the category of REPORTED SPEECH / DIRECT SPEECH is defined as: the reporting verb in the mid position of the reported clause. Here’s a list of the 10 most common B2 reporting verbs found in the mid position: claimed, commented, muttered, observed, recalled, remarked, responded, sighed, stated, whispered This is a very
In the EGP, there are several points in the category of PRONOUNS with the possessive pronoun ‘ours’:
C1 Point 101:
… in subject position
B2 Point 72:
… with singular and plural reference, in subject position.
B2 Point 86 is the same except:
… in object positions, and complement positions after ‘be’ and after prepositions.
B2 Point 87
possessive pronoun ‘ours’ after noun + ‘of’.
B2 Point 76 is dealt with in another post: https://englishgrammar.pro/comparative-hers-ours/
There is no clear indication of what the difference is between the C1 101 and B2 72 point when it is in the subject position since ‘ours’ will always ‘have a singular or plural reference’. This is another example of ambiguity in the EGP.
To add to the confusion, when we look at ‘ours’ in the EVP, we are given an A2 level for the word and an example from a B1 student:
A search in iWeb for: ours _v
*’Ours’ is not always the subject in the following Ngrams! Since here it is not the first word in the clause. (It is often the last word in the preceding clause).
1 OURS IS 13647
Los Angeles Times Democracies around the world are under threat. Ours is no exception.
2 OURS WAS 4788 3 OURS ARE 3825 4 OURS HAS 1955 5 OURS WERE 1215 6 OURS HAVE 1047 7 OURS WILL 1027 8 OURS HAD 885 9 OURS DID 796 10 OURS DOES 792 11 OURS CAN 647 12 OURS DO 554 13 OURS WOULD 550 14 OURS CAME 365 15 OURS COULD 236 16 OURS SHOULD 221 17 OURS MAY 209 18 OURS INCLUDED 204 19 OURS WENT 166 20 OURS TOOK 158 21 OURS LOOKS 141 22 OURS COMES 135 23 OURS COME 129 24 OURS GOT 126 25 OURS MUST 125 26 OURS BEING 122 27 OURS BE 120 28 OURS LOOK 105 29 OURS STARTED 103 30 OURS GET 99 31 OURS DONE 97 32 OURS MIGHT 97 33 OURS TURNED 97 34 OURS USED 94 35 OURS LOOKED 91 36 OURS NEEDS 87
37 OURS WORKS 84
OURS SEEMS
That’s Online The History of the Daiquiri: War, White Rum and a Ship’s Doctor There may be other universes based on all sorts of other principles, but ours seems to be based on war. *’seems’ is already B2 grammar (wide range of linking verbs)
39 OURS GETS 78 40 OURS MADE 78 41 OURS SAID 75 42 OURS USING 75 43 OURS GOES 72 44 OURS SHALL 72 45 OURS COST 69 46 OURS GO 68 47 OURS USES 65 48 OURS SEEM 63 49 OURS ARRIVED 62 50 OURS WORK 62 51 OURS BROKE 59 52 OURS GAVE 55 53 OURS CALLED 54 54 OURS SET 54 55 OURS NEED 53 56 OURS TOLD 53 57 OURS DIED 52 58 OURS INCLUDES 51
59 OURS BASED 50 (*this is -ED clause following.)
60 OURS TAKES 47 61 OURS LIVES 45 62 OURS OFFERS 44 63 OURS RUNS 43 64 OURS WO 43 65 OURS MAKES 41 66 OURS BEGAN 40
67 OURS NAMED 40 (*this is -ED clause following.)
68 OURS WORKED 39 69 OURS TAKE 38 70 OURS SAYS 37 71 OURS ENDED 36 72 OURS NEEDED 36 73 OURS CA 34
74 OURS REQUIRES 34 (not subject in most examples)
A search for preposition (not of_IO) in iWeb shows that ‘ours’ is often used to discuss relatedness:
* * * *_ii ours
1 , WHICH MAY DIFFER FROM OURS 65 2 ITS OWN TIME AND IN OURS 37 3 FOR A SMALL COMPANY LIKE OURS 34 4 IN A SOCIETY SUCH AS OURS 34 5 PRIVACY POLICIES MAY DIFFER FROM OURS 26 6 AT THE TABLE NEXT TO OURS 25 7 PRIVACY PRACTICES MAY DIFFER FROM OURS 23 8 YOUR FAMILY IS ANYTHING LIKE OURS 22 9 LINK FROM YOUR SITE TO OURS 21 10 PRIVACY POLICY MAY DIFFER FROM OURS 21 11 SOME ENTIRELY UNRELATED WEB-SITES TO OURS 21 12 TOTALLY UNRELATED INTERNET WEBSITES TO OURS 21 13 TOTALLY UNRELATED WEB SITES TO OURS 21 14 YOUR PROTECTION AS WELL AS OURS 21 15 IN A COUNTRY SUCH AS OURS 20 16 SOME ENTIRELY UNRELATED SITES TO OURS 20 17 ABSOLUTELY UNRELATED INTERNET WEBSITES TO OURS 19 18 COMPLETELY UNRELATED INTERNET WEBSITES TO OURS 19 19 IN A DEMOCRACY SUCH AS OURS 19
20 SOME COMPLETELY UNRELATED SITES TO OURS 19
…….
_nn of ours
1 FRIEND OF OURS 3460 2 FRIENDS OF OURS 1708 3 WORLD OF OURS 1002 4 COUNTRY OF OURS 897 5 FAVORITE OF OURS 868 6 CLIENT OF OURS 862 7 CUSTOMER OF OURS 674 8 FAVOURITE OF OURS 430 9 GOAL OF OURS 308 10 PARTNER OF OURS 290 11 DREAM OF OURS 260 12 LAND OF OURS 257 13 PLANET OF OURS 256 14 NATION OF OURS 208 15 CONCERN OF OURS 188 16 FAULT OF OURS 183 17 CITY OF OURS 173 18 PART OF OURS 164 19 SIZE OF OURS 159
20 PASSION OF OURS 140
PELIC students
B2/C1:
*Note, there are many errors surrounding or using ‘ours’, so here we include only the clearer examples:
694,dl7,Chinese,Male,117,5,w,48,1,557,”Choosing Mr. / Mrs. Right before Marriage
Thus, if we find our partner’s action is quite different from ours, it doesn’t mean he or she is really the wrong person.
*Note that the complexity checker predicts to be from an advanced student:
13983,ff2,Chinese,Female,288,5,w,1897,1,803
People who have a job like ours have a different life style.
27391,gb4,Chinese,Female,534,5,w,3597,1,1201, Men should share housework
Ours is the job of protecting, surviving and of course ruling aristocratically.
B2:
26482,ep4,Thai,Female,524,4,w,3437,3,416
Ours is not perfect democracy so it doesn’t always work.
39742,ef0,Arabic,Male,739,4,w,5110,1,277
Our parents spent their whole life sacrificing and dedicating their life to make ours just better.
B1:
24037,el8,Hebrew,Female,469,3,g,3111,1,99,
Friends of ours told me that the local council has opened two beautiful play ground[s].
In the English Grammar Profile, B2 point 138 in the category of MODALITY is defined as:
could as the past form of ‘can’ in reported speech
For example:
Victim support arrived at our door and told us that we could expect to write off the next five years to grief.
TED
The following clusters from iWeb were searched with varying the spaces between said|told * * * could
1 SAID HE COULD 13770
1 SAID HE COULD SEE 543 2 SAID HE COULD GET 186 3 SAID HE COULD HEAR 161 4 SAID HE COULD TELL 161 5 SAID HE COULD FEEL 122 6 SAID HE COULD MAKE 120 7 SAID HE COULD UNDERSTAND 97 8 SAID HE COULD HELP 93 9 SAID HE COULD GO 86 10 SAID HE COULD TAKE 74
11 SAID HE COULD FIND 67
12 SAID HE COULD FIX 55
Idaho State Journal BACK IN BUSINESS: CEED Director undergoes life-saving heart surgery in New York amid pandemic He said he could fix me 100 percent and after that I was convinced Mount Sinai was where I needed to go.” While Street was ready for New …
13 SAID HE COULD GIVE 55
14 SAID HE COULD SMELL 52
2 SAID THEY COULD 7342 3 SAID IT COULD 7171 4 SAID I COULD 6065
5 SAID SHE COULD 5581
1 TOLD ME I COULD 3005
Men’s Journal I Attended the Firefly Gathering & Here’s What I Learned He told me I could live on $4,400 a year. “We pray for the apocalypse every day,” he told me. “Something has got to change. We’re screwing it all up.”
2 SAID THAT HE COULD 1698
2 TOLD ME THAT I COULD 1067
5 SAID THERE WAS NOTHING THEY COULD 219
Coventry Live Call for action after trash is ‘fly-tipped by the lorry load’ in Wood End The fire service came out and took one look to see the problem but they said there was nothing they could do because they have got to go …
4 OPTION (NN1 ) 96
2 CAUSE (NN1 ) 252 3 FORM (NN1 ) 158 4 REASON (NN1 ) 90
2 PART (NN1 ) 165 3 FACTOR (NN1 ) 156 4 ASPECT (NN1 ) 96
Los Angeles Times Democracies around the world are under threat. Ours is no exception.
