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.

Gerund

• ✅ I enjoy reading. — ❌ I enjoy to read.
• ✅ She's good at swimming. — ❌ She's good at to swim.
• ✅ He avoids making eye contact. — gerund after avoid
• ✅ Running is good exercise. — gerund as subject

A gerund is the -ing form of a verb functioning as a noun. It follows verbs like enjoy, avoid, finish, mind and ALL prepositions. Never use an infinitive where a gerund is required.

Rule: after a preposition (at, in, of, about, without) → always gerund. After enjoy, avoid, finish, mind, suggest, deny → always gerund.

Imperative mood

• ✅ Sit down. — command (bare verb, no subject)
• ✅ Don't touch that. — negative imperative
• ✅ Let's go. — first-person inclusive imperative
• ❌ You sit down. — adding you sounds aggressive (only for emphasis/anger)

The imperative mood uses the bare verb form with no stated subject for commands, instructions, requests, and invitations. Negated with don't. Softened with please or replaced by questions (Could you…?) for politeness.

Rule: imperative = base form of verb, no subject, no tense marking. If there's a subject or tense → it's not imperative.

Interjection

• Wow! — surprise/amazement
• Ouch! — pain
• Oops! — minor mistake
• Ugh. — disgust/frustration
• Um… / Well… — hesitation fillers

Interjections are standalone reaction words, grammatically detached from the sentence. They express emotion (Wow!), pain (Ouch!), greeting (Hi!), or hesitation (Um…). Each language has different ones — English interjections must be learned as-is.

Pattern: interjections stand alone or attach loosely with a comma. They carry social meaning but no grammatical function in the sentence.

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.

Phrasal verb

• give up = quit — ≠ give + up literally
• come across = find by chance — ≠ come + across literally
• put up with = tolerate — 3-word phrasal verb
• look into = investigate — ≠ physically look inside something

Phrasal verbs = verb + particle/preposition forming a unit with non-literal meaning. There are thousands, and they dominate casual native English. They must be learned as whole units.

Key fact: the particle completely changes the verb's meaning. Look up (search), look after (care for), look into (investigate), look down on (disrespect) — all different.

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.

Preposition

• ✅ interested in — ❌ interested on
• ✅ good at football — ❌ good in football
• ✅ depend on — ❌ depend of
• ✅ arrive at the station — ❌ arrive to the station

Prepositions link nouns to the rest of the sentence: time (at 5pm), place (in London), manner (with care), abstract (afraid of). Most are idiomatic — the "correct" preposition must be memorised with each verb/adjective combination.

Rule: there is no universal rule. English prepositions are learned by combination: interested IN, good AT, depend ON, afraid OF. Your native language's equivalent will often mislead.

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.

Punctuation

• Period (.) — ends statements
• Comma (,) — separates within sentences
• Semicolon (;) — links related independent clauses
• Colon (:) — introduces what follows
• Question mark (?) — ends direct questions
• Apostrophe (') — possession + contractions

Punctuation marks signal sentence structure to the reader: where thoughts end, how they connect, what's quoted, and what belongs to whom. ~12 marks, each with specific rules.

Key insight: punctuation isn't about pauses in speech. It's about grammatical structure. Learn the structure, and the punctuation follows.

Questions

• ✅ Do you like coffee? — do-support (no existing auxiliary)
• ✅ Can she swim? — inversion (auxiliary before subject)
• ✅ Where does he live? — wh-question
• ✅ You're coming, aren't you? — tag question

Questions require inversion (auxiliary before subject) or do-support (add do/does/did). Types: yes/no (Do you…?), wh- (What/Where/When…?), negative (Don't you…?), tag (…isn't it?).

Rule: find the auxiliary. Move it before the subject. No auxiliary? Add do/does/did. Never use just intonation in written English (You like coffee? is not standard).

Sentence

• She left. — simple (one independent clause)
• She left, and he stayed. — compound (two independents)
• She left because she was tired. — complex (independent + dependent)
• She left because she was tired, and he stayed. — compound-complex

A sentence = one or more clauses forming a complete thought, ending with terminal punctuation. Four types based on clause structure: simple, compound, complex, compound-complex.

Minimum requirement: at least one independent clause with a subject + finite verb. Without that → fragment.

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.

Verb mood

• Indicative: She goes every day. — stating fact
• Imperative: Go now. — giving command
• Subjunctive: I suggest she go. — hypothetical/recommendation
• Conditional: She would go if asked. — dependent on condition

Verb mood marks the speaker's attitude: indicative (fact), imperative (command), subjunctive (unreal/recommended), conditional (would/could). English barely marks mood morphologically — mostly through auxiliaries and word order.

Rule: stating a fact? → indicative. Giving a command? → imperative. Imagining/recommending? → subjunctive or conditional. The mood determines which verb forms and auxiliaries you use.

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.

Collocations

• ✅ make a decision — ❌ do a decision
• ✅ strong coffee — ❌ powerful coffee
• ✅ heavy rain — ❌ strong rain
• ✅ highly unlikely — ❌ very unlikely (grammatical, but less natural)

Collocations are word pairs that English habitually puts together. Both options may be grammatically valid, but one sounds native and the other doesn't.

Pattern: there's no logic to predict them — you make decisions but do homework, you have strong coffee but heavy rain. They must be learned as chunks, not deduced from rules.

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.