Future tense

• ✅ I*'ll** help you.* — spontaneous decision (will)
• ✅ I*'m going to** study medicine.* — planned intention
• ✅ I*'m meeting** Sam at six.* — fixed arrangement (present continuous)
• ✅ The train leaves at 8. — scheduled event (present simple)

English has no single future tense — it uses will, be going to, present continuous, and present simple for different shades of future meaning. The choice signals whether you're predicting, planning, arranging, or stating a schedule.

Pattern: spontaneous → will. Planned → going to. Arranged → present continuous. Timetabled → present simple.

Infinitive

• ✅ I want to go. — to-infinitive after want
• ✅ She can swim. — bare infinitive after modal
• ✅ Let me help. — bare infinitive after let
• ❌ I enjoy to read. — wrong (enjoy takes gerund, not infinitive)

The infinitive has two forms: to-infinitive (to go) after verbs like want, decide, plan, hope; bare infinitive (go) after modals and causatives (let, make, help).

Rule: after want, need, decide, plan, hope, expect, agree, refuse → to-infinitive. After can, will, must, let, make → bare infinitive. After enjoy, avoid, finish → gerund, NOT infinitive.

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).

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.

Participle

• ✅ a broken window — past participle as adjective
• ✅ the running water — present participle as adjective
• ✅ I have eaten. — past participle in perfect tense
• ✅ She is sleeping. — present participle in progressive tense
• ❌ I have went. — wrong (past tense, not past participle: use gone)

A participle is a verb form that also works as an adjective. Present (-ing): running, sleeping. Past (-ed or irregular): broken, written, gone. Used in progressive tenses, perfect tenses, passive voice, and as modifiers.

Trap: don't confuse past tense (went) with past participle (gone). After have/has/had → always past participle.

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.

Phrase

• the red car — noun phrase (functions as one noun unit)
• on the table — prepositional phrase
• has been running — verb phrase
• very quickly — adverb phrase

A phrase is a group of words that functions as a single unit WITHOUT a subject + verb pair. Types: noun phrase, verb phrase, prepositional phrase, adjective phrase, adverb phrase.

Key distinction: a phrase lacks a subject-verb pair. If it has subject + verb → it's a clause, not a phrase. Phrases are the building blocks clauses are made of.

Present tense

• I work here. — simple present (habit/permanent)
• I am working now. — present progressive (happening right now)
• I have lived here for 10 years. — present perfect (started past, still true)
• I have been waiting for an hour. — present perfect progressive (duration up to now)

Four present tense forms: simple (habits/facts), progressive (now/temporary), perfect (past → present relevance), perfect progressive (ongoing duration). Each encodes a different relationship between the action and the present moment.

Trap: "I am living here for 10 years" ❌ — started in the past + still true = present PERFECT (have lived/have been living), not progressive.

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.

Passive voice

• ✅ The meal was cooked by the chef. — passive (action matters)
• ✅ Mistakes were made. — passive, agent hidden (evasive)
• ✅ Active: The chef cooked the meal. — stronger, clearer
• ❌ The report was being been written. — malformed passive

The passive = be + past participle. Object becomes subject. Use it when the doer is unknown, irrelevant, or obvious. Avoid when it hides responsibility or weakens prose.

Formula: find the active object → make it the subject → use be (matching tense) + past participle → optionally add by + agent.

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.

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).

Progressive tense

• ✅ I am working in London. — temporary, happening now
• ✅ I work in London. — permanent/habitual (simple)
• ❌ I am knowing the answer. — stative verb, can't be progressive
• ✅ She was reading when I arrived. — past progressive (in progress at that moment)

The progressive = be + -ing. Marks actions as ongoing, temporary, or in-progress at a reference time. NOT used with stative verbs (know, believe, own, want, like) unless meaning shifts.

Rule: is the action temporary/in-progress right now? → progressive. Is it a permanent fact, habit, or schedule? → simple. Is it a stative verb? → almost never progressive.

Word order

• ✅ She (S) eats (V) cake (O). — standard SVO
• ❌ Cake eats she. — SOV (not English)
• ✅ a lovely little old rectangular green French silver whittling knife — adjective order (opinion→size→age→shape→colour→origin→material→purpose)
• ✅ Never have I seen… — inversion after negative adverb

English word order = SVO (subject-verb-object) as default. Adjectives follow a fixed sequence (opinion→size→age→shape→colour→origin→material). Adverb placement varies by type. Deviations signal questions, emphasis, or literary style.

Rule: when in doubt, default to SVO. English position = meaning. Move a word and you change the grammar or the emphasis.

B1 | Intermediate

• ✅ If I had more time, I would travel more. — second conditional
• ✅ The bridge was built in 1920. — passive voice
• ✅ She said she was tired. — reported speech with backshift
• ✅ Although it rained, we enjoyed the trip. — complex sentence with concession

These are B1 patterns — the CEFR intermediate level. At B1 you link ideas, use passive voice, handle reported speech, and manage second conditional — enough for travel, work basics, and everyday independence.

Marker: if you can explain why something happened and follow a news story, you're B1.

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.