Course overview

Habits and general truths vs. actions happening now or just for a short time.

Knowing when to use a/an, the, or no article at all.

Much/many/a lot of and uncountable nouns.

Affirmatives vs questions/negatives, and offers/requests.

The verb must agree with the noun that comes after it, not with "there".

Irregular forms and the spelling/sound of -ed.

Plans/evidence vs. on-the-spot decisions/predictions.

Spelling changes, -er/-est vs more/most, irregulars, and than/the.

The adverb goes before the main verb but after be.

Ability, permission and polite requests.

In (months/years), on (days/dates), at (clock times).

In = enclosed space, on = surface, at = a point or place.

General preference vs. a specific want or offer.

Apostrophe for possession vs. plain s for plurals.

Have got and have mean the same thing for possession but form questions and negatives in completely different ways.

Finished past time vs. unfinished time and present relevance.

For marks a length of time while since marks a starting point.

Completed action vs. action in progress / interruption.

Past states and habits, and what would cannot do.

General truths vs. real future possibilities.

Unreal or hypothetical present and future situations.

Predictions vs. intentions vs. fixed arrangements.

Personal obligation vs. external necessity vs. advice.

Prohibition vs. absence of obligation.

Which verbs are followed by -ing and which by to.

So + adjective/adverb vs. such + (a) noun phrase.

Too means "more than wanted" vs. enough means "sufficient", and the word order changes.

Expressing equality and inequality with as ... as.

Choosing who/which/that and knowing when that can be left out.

Tense backshift and pronoun/time-expression changes.

Negative (few/little) vs. positive (a few/a little) meaning.

Common collocations and fixed expressions decide which verb you use.

The ending changes the meaning — how a person feels vs. what causes the feeling.

Two-item quantifiers and verb agreement.

Result/completion vs. duration/ongoing activity.

Marking the earlier of two past events.

Unreal/hypothetical past and regret.

Past condition → present result, and the reverse.

Form across tenses and when the passive is preferred.

Word order in reported questions; ask/tell + infinitive.

Commas, that restrictions, essential vs. extra information.

Expressing certainty and probability about now.

Modal + have + past participle to deduce about the past.

The verb after wish shifts with meaning: past for the present, past perfect for the past, would for annoyance.

Arranging for someone else to do something for you.

In progress at a future time vs. completed by a future time.

The same verb means two different things depending on -ing or to.

Generic reference and systematic zero-article patterns.

Although needs a full clause, but despite and in spite of need a noun or -ing form.

Each linker has its own grammar and punctuation, even when the meaning is similar.

Auxiliary agreement and positive/negative polarity.

Combining intensifiers with that-clauses and infinitives.

The + comparative ... the + comparative; far/much + comparative.

Object and pronoun placement; separable vs. inseparable verbs.

Fronting a negative forces subject–auxiliary inversion, just like in a question.

Splitting one idea into two clauses to focus and emphasize.

Omitting if by inverting the subject and auxiliary.

-ing/-ed and having + participle to combine clauses concisely.

Dropping the relative pronoun + be to shorten clauses.

Base form after suggest/insist/demand/recommend/essential that.

Needn't have vs. didn't need to, and other modal-perfect nuance.

Was going to / would for plans viewed from a past moment.

Preposition + whom/which vs. stranded prepositions; quantifier + of which.

Adding do/does/did to an already affirmative verb to stress truth or contrast.

Moving objects and complements to the front shifts focus but does not always trigger inversion.

Very and absolutely don't combine with the same adjectives.

The behaves differently across names, places, institutions and abstractions.

Linking ideas formally with nonetheless, thereby, hence, whereby.

Turning verbs and adjectives into nouns for formal, dense style.

Preference, advice and urgency followed by past or base forms.

Informal/eventive get-passive vs. neutral be-passive.

Softening claims with modals, adverbs and reporting verbs.

The inversion trigger is often buried inside a longer phrase, and so/such ... that invert differently from time adverbials.

Were-subjunctive, lest, be it, and fixed subjunctive phrases all use bare or unreal forms that defy normal tense agreement.

Leaving words out and replacing them with so, do, one, not.

Putting normally stative verbs into the continuous to add a deliberate shade of meaning.

The perfect frames an event as relevant "up to now"; the simple just locates it in time.

Finely graded, register-sensitive shades of obligation, expectation and futurity.

Each connector takes a different clause pattern and lest triggers the subjunctive.

Unless and if not overlap but are not always interchangeable.

Even if sets up a hypothetical condition, while even though concedes an established fact.

All the more, none the wiser, the least, by far.

Knowing when not to backshift; reporting facts that are still true.

Organizing given-before-new information for flow.

Matching grammatical choices to formality and context.

Be to covers arrangements, orders, fate and news-headline style, each with a different feel.

Boosting and softening meaning with precise adverbs that obey strict collocational and gradability rules.

Words and the grammatical patterns that must accompany them.