A search in iWeb for the part of speech of ‘long’: 1 LONG (JJ) 3552089 adjective 2 LONG (RR) 1695369 adverb 5 LONG (CS32) 727692 B2 complex subordinating conjunction: He says he‘s waited as long as he can for Batman to do the right thing. 6 LONG (RR22) 93610 C1 complex adverbial phrase ‘for long’ But if it went wrong, I would not want to live like that for long. 9 LONG (VVI) 48001 verb 14 LONG (RR32) […]
The backbone of what I will explain here will all come from Wardhaugh, R., & Fuller, J. M. (2014). An introduction to sociolinguistics. Yet, I will be sprinkling that with concepts from elsewhere to help get our minds around this area of language study. You may have heard of Larsen-Freeman’s “form meaning and USE” when discussing […]
A gerund is a non-finite ‘verbING’ that does not refer to time/tense. Gerunds can take the position of noun phrases. Unlike nouns, but similar to verbs, gerunds can have direct objects. We are interested in finding the most common noun phrases after ‘open to‘ that complete more abstract ideas such as willingness to consider something […]
Point 12 in the category of VERBS/patterns is defined: verbs, typically reporting verbs, followed by a noun or pronoun as the indirect object and a clause with or without ‘that’, as the direct object. *Note some of our search results are not indirect objects. However, the A2 complexity is still there with relative clauses. _VV […]
I am reading higher than normal alcohol levels in your bloodstream, sir. listen to the pronunciation “higher than normal” refers to the alcohol levels in the bloodstream being above the standard or average range. This could be due to recent consumption of alcohol. The exact range for “normal” can vary, but typically, a blood alcohol concentration (BAC) of 0.08% is considered legally impaired in […]
The following links all lead to pages that are related to the grammar category of nouns. All of them have something to do with the B1 level of English. The pages might overlap other categories and CEFR levels too.
Let’s look at an example of a ‘superlative adjective without a following noun‘ recorded in a real speaking test where two people are discussing social networking. TLC male Spanish B1 What is the meaning of this grammar? “One of the most common disadvantages“ = The noun is already understood from the previous sentence. ‘one of‘ […]
The structure “BE + past participle + BY” is commonly used in English to form passive voice sentences. In the passive voice, the subject of the sentence is acted upon by some other agent. The agent can be specified with a “by” phrase, but it’s not always necessary. Here’s how it works: BE: This is […]
Reflexive pronouns, also known as reflexive forms, are pronouns that are used to refer back to the subject of a sentence. They are formed by adding “-self” (singular) or “-selves” (plural) to certain personal pronouns. Reflexive pronouns emphasize that the subject of the sentence is also the object of the action. For example, the reflexive […]
Maybe your friend said, “It’s HARD for ME to believe you.” He was using an adjective to show his attitude toward you (maybe he thinks that you are lying to him). This is modality using adjectives. The attitude of the English user can be given through a modality structure similar to: “It is ADJECTIVE for […]
There are a number of overlapping points when it comes to negative questions in the English Grammar Profile. At a purely formal level, we can identify an adverb position in a negative question to identify B2, but at usage level, some of these would be considered rhetorical or persuasive strategies found at the more advanced […]
The following long list of English grammar explanations and examples at the B1 or intermediate level is what B1 students can use well most of the time in tests. B1 grammar is probably of most interest to A1 and A2 students because it is a higher level than they are at. How does B1 use […]
A search in the NOW corpus for: . _RR21 _RR22 , 1 . IN ADDITION, 302494 2 . OF COURSE, 168082 3 . IN PARTICULAR, 59379 4 . IN SHORT, 33034 5 . AT PRESENT, 25916 6 . IN GENERAL, 25021 7 . EVEN SO, 23640 8 . ONCE AGAIN, 19163 9 . AT FIRST, […]
There is no entry in the English Grammar Profile for the continuous infinitive passive. Therefore, we say this is a C2 grammar structure. A search in NOW corpus for: * to be being * 1 BELIEVED TO BE BEING HELD 18 The following example has past passive + infinitive + continuous passive: The driver of the lorry was believed to be being held by police. […]
