IT’S + adjective + THAT clause (focus) – English Grammar Profiler

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When we look at the most common examples with the grammar pattern: ‘it is adjective that clause’

It is clear that he stole it. 

 It is possible that the police won’t find him.  

It is likely that the man will get away.

We see they all appear to have modal adjectives (clear, possible, likely) that show how sure we are about the following clause using ‘FOCUS’.  Two of those examples point to other B2 grammar points that we have listed elsewhere.

The following results are for a search for it is adj that * in the iWeb corpus:

1 IT IS IMPORTANT THAT YOU 24586

2 IT IS CLEAR THAT THE 11999

3 IT IS POSSIBLE THAT THE 11851

5 IT IS LIKELY THAT THE 8644

6 IT IS TRUE THAT THE …
8 IT IS ESSENTIAL THAT YOU…

It is essential that you go to mass every weekend.

PELIC student: Spanish female level 5 grammar class.

The most common Ngrams ranked in order:

9 IT IS IMPERATIVE THAT YOU, 12 IT IS OBVIOUS THAT THE, 13 IT IS UNLIKELY THAT THE, 16 IT IS VITAL THAT YOU, 18 IT IS EVIDENT THAT THE, 22 IT IS CRITICAL THAT YOU, 35 IT IS PROBABLE THAT THE, 37 IT IS INTERESTING THAT THE, 38 IT IS APPARENT THAT THE, 50 IT IS ADVISABLE THAT YOU, 56 IT IS NECESSARY THAT THE, 62 IT IS CERTAIN THAT THE, 66 IT IS CRUCIAL THAT THE, 69 IT IS NOTEWORTHY THAT THE, 71 IT IS UNFORTUNATE THAT THE, 81 IT IS GREAT THAT YOU, 89 IT IS SIGNIFICANT THAT THE, 98 IT IS GOOD THAT YOU

EVP B1 adjectives:

certain, essential, necessary, obvious, unlikely

B2:

apparent, critical, crucial, evident, imperative, probable, significant, unfortunate, vital

Try our reading and listening quiz with 13 of the most common adjectives found in this grammar pattern:
Researcher comments:

The search listings come from a search in the iWeb corpus for:  it is _JJ that * *

In the search results, we have only kept the first entry for each adjective.

There are also numerous almost identical grammar structures listed at B2, so for that reason, we need to allow only a limited range of adjectives with this point, otherwise, this post should not exist. A1 vocabulary = good great important interesting possible.

It should also be remembered that ‘important’ has its own entry at B1 in MODALITY.