by Phil Williams | Sep 25, 2014 | Grammar
States, which may be used as a general description for different states of mind, senses conditions and possession, usually use simple tenses instead of continuous tenses, even when the action or event is temporary or is interrupted. This creates a trick area of...
by Phil Williams | Sep 23, 2014 | Definitions, Grammar, Prepositions
Depending on the object, you can “agree with”, “agree on”, “agree about” or “agree to” something. All of these prepositions can be connected to a noun, so it’s the nature of the object that decides the appropriate...
by Phil Williams | Sep 16, 2014 | Exercises, Grammar, Reading Exercise
Continuing my short series of narrative examples to explain different uses (and the reasons behind different choices) in using past tenses, below is another brief past tense passage. The sentences are numbered, with full explanations below. Past tense narrative...
by Phil Williams | Sep 11, 2014 | Definitions, Grammar
The subjunctive mood in English is used to describe actions, ideas and events that are not real facts; for example imagined possibilities (or impossibilities!), and future intentions. It is often used in dependent clauses, such as if statements in conditional...
by Phil Williams | Sep 9, 2014 | Exercises, Grammar, Reading Exercise, Writing skills
As the many uses of the different aspects of English can make choosing between the different tenses confusing, it may help to look at specific narrative texts or sections of English dialogue and analyse why the writer or speaker chooses different tenses. To help...
by Phil Williams | Aug 15, 2014 | Grammar
The past perfect continuous can seem quite complicated to form, with had + been + present participle. However, the nice thing about the past perfect continuous is that the words used in the form never change (like the bare infinitive). This is because all three words...