Indirect speech

• Direct: "I am tired." → Indirect: She said she was tired. (present → past)
• Direct: "I will come." → Indirect: He said he would come. (will → would)
• Direct: "I have finished." → Indirect: She said she had finished. (present perfect → past perfect)
• today → that day; here → there; tomorrow → the next day

Indirect speech reports someone's words without quotation marks. The mechanism: backshift tenses one step into the past, shift pronouns, and adjust time/place expressions.

Rule: if the reporting verb is past (said, told, asked), shift the reported tense back one step. If the reporting verb is present (says), no shift needed.

Modal verb

• ✅ She can swim. — ❌ She can to swim. (modal + bare infinitive, no to)
• ✅ You must leave now. — strong obligation
• ✅ It might rain. — possibility (~50%)
• ✅ He should apologise. — advice/recommendation

Modal verbs (can, could, may, might, must, shall, should, will, would) are auxiliaries expressing ability, permission, possibility, obligation, or speculation. Always + bare infinitive. Never inflected (she can, not she cans).

Rule: modals never take to after them, never add -s for third person, and can't combine directly (must can ❌ — use must be able to).

Verb tense

Verb tense = time (past/present/future) × aspect (simple/progressive/perfect) = 12 forms. Each slot has a specific job — not just "when" but "how the action relates to its time frame."

Key insight: most learners don't need all 12 at once. Simple covers 80% of communication. Add perfect and progressive as needed.

Adverb

• ✅ She sings beautifully — ❌ She sings beautiful
• ✅ He drives carefully — ❌ He drives careful
• ✅ They arrived late — ✅ a late train (same form, both roles)
• ✅ She works hard — ❌ She works hardly (different meaning!)

The -ly words are adverbs — they modify verbs, adjectives, or other adverbs, telling you how, when, where, or to what degree.

Pattern: most adjectives become adverbs by adding -ly, but watch the exceptions — fast, hard, late, well — that keep the same shape or change meaning entirely.

B2 | Upper Intermediate

• ✅ If I had studied harder, I would have passed. — third conditional
• ✅ The report is being reviewed by the committee. — passive progressive
• ✅ Having finished the exam, she left. — participle clause
• ✅ He denied having taken the money. — complex verb pattern

These are B2 patterns — the CEFR upper-intermediate level. At B2 you handle mixed conditionals, all passive forms, participle clauses, and can argue a point clearly. This is the level most universities and employers require.

Marker: if you can write a structured essay and debate an abstract topic, you're B2.

Medium

• If I were you, I would apologise. — one rule (second conditional), but distractors like was tempt you
• Answers require active thought, not instant pattern recognition
• Vocabulary and context are realistic, not artificially simplified
• Usually tests one rule, but the wrong answers are plausible

Medium marks middle-difficulty challenges: A2–B1, one rule tested, but with realistic distractors that require genuine understanding.

Use "Medium" when Easy feels too obvious but Hard feels overwhelming. This is where most productive learning happens — the sweet spot of difficulty.