Grammar of the Future in the Past
I’ve had a few queries lately asking for more information about using the future tenses in the past. This is used when we want to talk about events yet to occur but from a past perspective. This is a topic that was actually added to the later versions of The...Future Tenses Exercise II: choosing from mixed future tenses
Given the popularity of this future tenses exercise, I thought it would be good to expand on that with another in the same format. As before, in the following exercise, complete the sentences choosing the correct future tense form for the verb in brackets. The future...
Understanding Present Perfect States Without Times
I had a question recently asking about how to use the present perfect without durational adverbs, such as “for” or “since”. There are some examples of this in The English Tenses Practical Grammar Guide, but I thought it would be useful to expand on the concept....
Broad and Implied Negatives: Negative Sentences Without Negative Words
I’ve had an interesting correspondence with a reader who identified an implied negative which is rarely explored in grammar guides – where a negative sentence is created without any explicitly negative words. These can be more difficult to spot than regular negatives,...
What’s the difference between “it’s” and “its”?
Here’s an issue that confuses native English speakers: when and where to use an apostrophe with it. This has been covered a lot online, because these two words are very commonly confused, but I still get asked about it so hope my own explanation might reach a few more...Want to Master English?
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