21 alternative verbs to describe speaking
There are many verbs in English that describe speech. If you want to describe a conversation in a more dynamic way, you can choose verbs with more specific meanings than “to say”, which simply means to speak. This is useful if you want to create a varied...How to use the past perfect to build narratives
Following on from my article about using the past perfect to demonstrate sequences, let’s look at how it can build an effective narrative. The past perfect can help create atmosphere, feeding new information into a narrative at more flexible times. The past perfect is...Creating past event sequences with the past perfect
To give a little structure to the different examples of past tenses uses I’ve highlighted in some of my narrative articles, here’s a quick explanation of how the past perfect can be used to create past event sequences (adapted from The English Tenses Practical Grammar...
The Past Tenses in Narrative Use – Comparative Examples (1)
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...
What are simple, compound and complex sentences?
Simple sentences are formed in English containing an independent clause that forms a grammatically complete action, event or idea. A simple sentence should have a complete noun and verb relationship with any necessary additional information. To make writing more...Want to Master English?
ELB has produced a series of bestselling English guides, available from all major retailers, with over 45,000 copies sold worldwide. Click a cover to learn more!
