keeping – English Grammar Profiler

We‘re keeping an open mind about the causes of the fire. listen A search in NOW corpus for: _VV _AT _JJ _NN _RP *note that particles and prepositions are sometimes incorrectly tagged. 1 TAKE THE EASY WAY OUT 761 (C1) You didn’t take the easy way out. listen 2 VISITED THE RIVAL NATION IN 734 3 TAKING THE EASY WAY OUT 465 4 KEEP …

lexical verb + article + adjective + noun + particle | preposition Read More »

In the English Grammar Profile, A2 point 28 in the category of VERBS/patterns: ‘enjoy’ followed by the ‘-ing’ form. An iWeb search for: ENJOY _VVG 1 ENJOY WORKING 15550 2 ENJOYED READING 12553 3 ENJOY PLAYING 12353 4 ENJOY READING 11886 5 ENJOY WATCHING 11164 6 ENJOY USING 9039 7 ENJOYED WORKING 7176 8 ENJOY …

ENJOY + verb-ING Read More »

Let’s look at the most common examples of non-finite or ellipted clauses used after ‘not’. Usually, we would say: I am not sure if it is possible. But we can remove the subject and verb to make an ellipted clause: Not sure if it is possible. We can also say: This is a petrol car …

‘Not sure if it is.’ (NOT + non-finite or ellipted clause) Read More »

In the English Grammar Profile, B1 point 31 in the category of PAST is defined: present perfect continuous: QUESTIONS with a limited range of verbs. Note that questions are generally low frequency in the CLC probably due to lack of spoken data. *Also note that there are no other entries for ‘range of verbs’ PELIC …

present perfect continuous questions Read More »

Point 27 in the category of PAST is defined as: past perfect continuous: an action or event which began before a point in the past and was still continuing up to that point, often with ‘for’ or ‘since’, to give background information. Point 32 in the PAST is defined as: past perfect continuous: background action …

had been + VERBing Read More »

CHEAPER THAN BUYING | BETTER THAN GETTING | EASIER THAN TRYING

A2 Verb Patterns expressing preference

A search in iWeb corpus for the frequency of indefinite pronouns with the tag: _PN1 1 SOMETHING 7038440 B1  (want + object + infinitive) Are you sure you don’t want something to eat? No, thanks.  I‘m fine. listen 2 ONE 7014912 3 EVERYTHING 3661675 4 SOMEONE 3447852 5 ANYTHING 3347394 6 EVERYONE 3007402 7 NOTHING 2966176 8 ANYONE 2741077 9 NO ONE 863063 (PN121 …

indefinite pronouns: SOMEBODY SOMEONE EVERYBODY EVERYONE Read More »

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 »