going – English Grammar Profiler

At C2 in the English Vocabulary Profile: work out = to understand something or to find the answer to something by thinking about it A search in NOW corpus for which ‘question words’ follow phrasal verbs: work out _*Q 1 WORK OUT HOW 12286 Just give us five minutes, Mr Poirot, and I‘m sure we‘ll be able to work out how you did it. listen 2 WORK OUT WHAT: I …

phrasal verb + clause ‘work out how you did it’ Read More »

What can be going through a man‘s mind at this moment? The Right Stuff The verb phrase “can be going” in the sentence above expresses possibility or uncertainty. The speaker is not sure what is going through the man’s mind, but they are asking for possible explanations. The word “going” is a present participle, which is a verb form that is used here to …

can be + VERB-ing Read More »

Here are examples of ‘BE going to’ with A1 infinitives: It is going to take time. Listen Are you going to do anything about it? Listen This is a group of people who want to tell you your work is going to live. listen I need a video clip, and you‘re gonna give it to me. listen   ‘Snow’ is A2 in the English Vocabulary Profile: The weather forecast said it‘s going to snow tonight. listen In the English Grammar Profile, in the category of FUTURE: B1 Point 31 is defined: ‘be going …

am|is|are + going + to-INFINITVE (future) Read More »

C1 point 58 in future with be going to is defined as: increasing range of adverbs (particularly adverbs of certainty) in the normal mid position. This point overlaps adverbs of certainty at C1. A search in iWeb for the adverbs we find in the EGP examples: _VB (probably|undoubtedly|surely) going to_T _VVI Note ‘surely’ is rare. …

BE + ADVERB + going to + VERB Read More »

This is another grammar post that is better dealt with as vocabulary.  In the English Grammar Profile (EGP), A2 point 25 in VERBs/patterns is defined: increasing range of verbs followed by a ‘to’-infinitive. The EGP A2 examples include: hope to go remember to bring (this clashes with the B2 point for a change of meaning verb …

Verb + TO-infinitive (range) Read More »

In the English Grammar Profile, B2 point 50 in the category of VERBS is defined as: ‘there’ with other verbs with modal meaning + ‘be’ + complement. The EGP modality examples contain: ‘need, have, is going + to’ However, in the English Vocabulary Profile, ‘there needs to be’ is listed at C2 with the following example: …

THERE + modality + TO BE Read More »

Here’s an example of an infinitive passive structure. He said it was the summation of the parts working together in such a way that nothing needed to be added, taken away, or altered. listen The English Grammar Profile B1 point 4 in the category of passives is defined as: an infinitive after a limited number of forms including ‘going to’, ‘have to’, ‘need to’, ‘want to’. *Note that Pearson lists this as: GSE 59 B2 …

going | have | need | want + TO BE + past participle Read More »

Let’s look at two examples to explain this grammar.  The first is from a student writing example using past continuous with an adverb that shows he didn’t control the situation with his friend and the second one is from an expert speaker using passives: For example, he was always playing soccer when I played baseball. PELIC Korean male level 4 grammar class.   They were …

(always | constantly) + past continuous Read More »

A range of adverbs with this future construction is examined.

Here is a comprehensive analysis of the most common “BE + NOT” forms in English, essential for expressing negation. The forms are listed in order of their frequency in the iWeb corpus. The top three forms are “is not”, “are not”, and “isn’t”, used in various contexts to deny or contradict assertions, form negative statements, and express doubt or uncertainty. Other forms like “’s not”, “was not”, “wasn’t”, “I’m not”, “aren’t”, and “were not” are also discussed with examples illustrating their usage.