no – English Grammar Profiler
At A2, English users can use a range of determiners, such as No + noun. Following this noun phrase with a gerund must be at the very least B1. A search in the NOW corpus for: no _NN _VVG 1 NO PROBLEM GETTING 977 There was no problem getting the GPS information since we have to wait for the satellite to pick it up. listen A further search …
NO + noun + verbING Read More »
Why say “is of interest” instead of “is interesting“? ‘is of + noun‘ is more formal and in academic writing, we use the noun form of a word more often. More importantly, ‘of+noun’ functions as a noun in this position. Therefore, it can often collocate correctly with modifiers. For example: “greatest interest” is much more …
BE + of NOUN PHRASE Read More »
In the C1 advanced handbook, there is a practice test for Reading and Use of English Part 1: Multiple Choice Cloze. We put the text with the answers through our English Grammar Profiler on this website and the text is clearly C2. Next, we are taking a corpus-based approach to do the test to see …
C1 Advanced – reading test part 1 Read More »
In the English Vocabulary Profile at C1, ‘in no time’ means ‘very soon’ A search for collocates in THE MOVIE CORPUS: 1 AT 138 I know this is a big change for you, but it‘ll feel like home in no time at all. listen 2 FIXED 29 Never fear. We‘ll have Alice fixed in no time. listen 3 FEET 25 4 NORMAL 14 5 FLAT 12
It is easy to find noun phrases functioning as a subject-predicate in a clause. For example, “I was a kid.” ‘a kid’ is a noun phrase after the copular verb ‘was.’ An iWeb search for: _P _VB _A _NN . 1 I WAS A KID . 7523 2 I WAS A CHILD . 2942 3 …
noun phrase (subject predicative) Read More »
There are many types of negative adverbials with inversion, that are not in the EGP, so they should be listed at C2. For example: Seldom do orcs journey in the open under the sun, yet these have done so. Listen Let’s analyse two EXPERT EXAMPLES to understand inversion with complex negative adverbials. Under no circumstances should doodling be eradicated from a classroom or a boardroom or even the war room. TED In no way am I saying that preference doesn’t exist. TED ‘Under no circumstances‘ …
negative adverbials + inversion Read More »
It had LITTLE OR NO EFFECT on me.
In the English Grammar Profile, C1 point 25 in the category of NEGATION is defined as: ‘whatsoever’ after a negative form for emphasis The adverb ‘whatsoever’ is listed at C1 in the English Vocabulary Profile too. none at all For example: None whatsoever. No, no. Nothing whatsoever. Τhey‘re not supposed to give you any resistance whatsoever. On any level whatsoever. None? listen A search in …
whatsoever Read More »
Let’s look at an expert example of limiting comparison: Now, these people are no more special than any of us. (listen to this sentence) ‘no more‘ = not more Point 74 in the category of ADJECTIVES is defined as: ‘no’ / ‘not any’ to limit the scale of comparison. (comparative clauses) *But really this grammar is equally useful with comparative adverb phrases. …
‘There’s no better example than China.’ (NO | ‘NOT ANY’ + comparative) Read More »
A2 Point 13 in DETERMINERS is defined as: range of quantifying determiners (‘some’, ‘any’, ‘no’, ‘more’, ‘a lot of’) with both plural nouns and uncountable nouns. This point overlaps: A2 Point 18 in the category of NOUNS: form simple noun phrases by pre-modifying nouns with an increasing range of determiners. For example: We would like to remove any doubt as to the validity of our search. …
some | any | no | more | a lot of + NOUN Read More »
In the English Grammar Profile, B2 point 85 in the category of PRONOUNS is defined as: (SUBJECT) ELLIPSIS: leave out the subject pronoun with a limited range of verbs, in informal contexts. *this will clash with imperatives and iWeb searches time out too much, so here we search for modals, past participles and 3rd person verbs. …
subject pronoun (ellipsis) Read More »
In the English Grammar Profile, B2 point 56 in PAST perfect simple is defined as: invert the subject and auxiliary verb with ‘no sooner … than’ to talk about something that happened immediately before something else, often in formal contexts This is quite a rare structure. 1 NO SOONER HAD HE SAID 30 2 NO …
NO SOONER + past perfect – than Read More »
The word ‘way’ is almost always a noun, but sometimes it can be an adverb. 1 WAY (singular noun) Here are common phrases at various levels as examples: And, by the way, I was right, she‘s not married. listen Personality goes a long way. listen Colonel, I have no way to protect these people. listen I shall be relieved when it is ended, one way or the other. listen What if we do it the other way around? listen It went …
WAY 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 »
‘When’ is most often a subordinating conjunction in the iWeb corpus. WHEN (CS) 8290974 (A2 conjunction) collocates in the movie corpus: 1 CAME 7116 She came by the hotel when I was leaving and she gave me this for you. The Shunning 2 COMES 6367 3 SAW 3620 4 GETS 2919 5 STARTED 2636 The next most common use is as a question adverb. WHEN (RRQ) 2397700 collocates 1 REMEMBER …
EVEN WHEN | NO MATTER WHEN Read More »
In this post we explore the ways ‘by’ is tagged in large corpora such as iWeb and NOW. 1 BY (II) is clearly most commonly found to be a simple preposition. 2 BY (II31) (complex prepositional phrase) 1 BY WAY OF 81460 C1 Second, the other sentences which make up the body of the paragraph should support the topic sentence by way of explaining or defining it. PELIC STUDENT: Korean female, level 5 writing …
BY phrases Read More »