You are spreading some massive office gossip, but you want your grammar to be as flawless as the news. Select the grammatically correct sentence to report what Bob said.
"I have won the lottery!" Bob said to us.
The correct answer is Bob told us that he had won the lottery.
When reporting a statement, the present perfect tense ("have won") shifts back to the past perfect ("had won").
We use told when there is a direct object receiving the information ("told us"). We cannot say "said us" (it would have to be "said to us"). Finally, "he have" is grammatically incorrect on its own.
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.
Perfect tense
- ✅ I have lived here for ten years. — present perfect (started past, still true)
- ❌ I live here for ten years. — wrong (simple present can't bridge past→now)
- ✅ She had finished before I arrived. — past perfect (earlier past)
- ✅ They will have left by noon. — future perfect (completed before future point)
The perfect = have + past participle. Connects an action to a reference point in time. Present perfect bridges past→now. Past perfect marks "earlier past." Future perfect marks "done before a future deadline."
Rule: if the action started in the past and is still relevant now → present perfect (have done). If two past events and you need the earlier one → past perfect (had done).
Verb
- walk → walk / walks / walked / walked / walking (5 forms, regular)
- go → go / goes / went / gone / going (5 forms, irregular)
- be → am/is/are/was/were/be/being/been (8 forms)
- can → can / could (modal: only 2 forms, no -s, no -ing)
A verb is the one word class every English sentence requires. Carries tense (when), aspect (duration), mood (attitude), and voice (active/passive). Regular verbs add -ed; ~200 irregular verbs have unpredictable past forms.
Key insight: fix your verbs and most grammar problems disappear. Wrong tense, wrong agreement, wrong form — verb errors account for the majority of grammatical mistakes.
Past tense
- I walked home. — simple past (completed action)
- I was walking when it rained. — past progressive (in progress)
- I had already left when she arrived. — past perfect (earlier past)
- I had been waiting for an hour. — past perfect progressive (duration up to a past point)
Four past tense forms: simple past (done), past progressive (was happening), past perfect (had already happened), past perfect progressive (had been happening). Each encodes different timing relative to other past events.
Pattern: simple past = the story's main timeline. Past progressive = background action. Past perfect = flashback to something even earlier.
Object
- Sam fed the dogs. — direct object (what was fed)
- She sent him a present. — indirect object (who received it)
- She waited for Lucy. — prepositional object (after preposition)
- I gave her a book. — indirect + direct object together
An object is what a verb acts on or directs its action toward. Direct = the thing affected. Indirect = the recipient. Prepositional = after a preposition.
Test: Verb + what/whom? = direct object. Verb + to/for whom? = indirect object. After a preposition? = prepositional object.
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.