Category Archives: Grammar

Relative Clauses

Posted on May 29, 2011 by Robert D. E. Senior

I’ve been promising to post on this for some time, so here it is finally. Basically everything is clearly expressed here: http://www.ego4u.com/en/cram-up/grammar/relative-clauses and there are also exercises for you to do, with instant feedback. Nonetheless, I would like to add … Continue reading →

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Independent and Dependent Clauses

Posted on May 29, 2011 by Robert D. E. Senior

This is just about the most basic concept in language. Note that every known language in the world has the ability to construct independent and dependent clauses. Knowing this fact makes your life easier when you come to learn a … Continue reading →

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Gerunds and infinitives

Posted on February 13, 2011 by Robert D. E. Senior

If you still having some problems with this rather troublesome aspect of English grammar then I would strongly recommend going here: http://www.englishpage.com/gerunds/index.htm and just working your way through the tutorial and the exercises. For those of you with access, there … Continue reading →

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needn’t / don’t need to / needn’t have / didn’t need to: what’s the difference?

Posted on February 7, 2011 by Robert D. E. Senior

This one confused the hell out of all of us, me included, until I looked it up. Here’s the answer: Needn’t and don’t need to There is also a difference in use when these verbs are used to describe present situations. … Continue reading →

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shall to should // will to would

Posted on January 30, 2011 by Robert D. E. Senior

This came up in a BEC Higher class. To keep it very simple it works like this: We use ‘should’ instead of ‘shall’ and ‘would’ instead of ‘will’ in reported speech following the basic ‘one step back’ rule: John: “I’ll … Continue reading →

Posted in Grammar, Reported Speech | 1 Comment

The Passive Voice – How, When and Why

Posted on January 20, 2011 by Robert D. E. Senior

Clink on the link for a very nice overview of how, when and why we use the passive voice. Click to access when-and-why-passive.pdf The next link is reference guide to how to use the passive in a large variety of … Continue reading →

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Correct Order of Adjectives

Posted on January 16, 2011 by Robert D. E. Senior

I was recently asked about this, so here’s a link that shows quite clearly the correct order of adjectives: http://www.al3ez.net/upload/d/salma_Adjective%20chart.bmp (taken from http://englishfifthyear.blogspot.com)

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