Ringing a company to move an appointment you cannot keep
A client rings to move an appointment his flight will make him miss; the receptionist offers alternatives.
B1 Intermediate
B1 is the level where you stop translating everything and start choosing. You can already be understood; what you lack is precision, such as which past form to use, how to connect two ideas, how to sound polite rather than blunt. This is the largest collection on the site, covering real future consequences, two-part verbs and their word order, essay connectors and workplace email. Because there is a lot here, pick the subject that matches your reason for learning rather than working straight down the page.
Restore the unguessable word in each everyday expression
Restore the one unpredictable word in each fixed everyday expression.
Everyday expressions where one word is fixed and cannot be swapped
Common fixed expressions in which one word is welded in place and cannot be swapped for a synonym.
Choosing the right line for each move in a work email
A work email is a sequence of moves; here is a ready-made line for each move at three levels of formality.
Which syllable carries the beat, and what makes it move
Which syllable carries the beat in longer words, and the endings that make the beat move.
Physically relaxed, or free from worry
One adjective with a physical sense and a mental sense, and a pronunciation that drops a syllable.
Separable and inseparable phrasal verbs: the test that tells them apart
Separable and inseparable phrasal verbs explained: the one test that tells them apart, worked examples of each, and the pronoun rule that settles word order.
How to write a polite email in English that does not read as rude
Politeness in a professional email in English is carried by the shape of the request. The format, the phrases and the habits that make formal emails land well.
Where the little word goes in two-part verbs
Where the object goes in two-part verbs - and the one position a pronoun is never allowed to take.
Asking for things politely in work emails
Why direct commands fail in work emails, and which softening frames native writers use instead.
Two-part verbs: where does the pronoun go
Put the two-part verb and its pronoun object in the only order English allows.
When the stress moves, the meaning changes
How moving the stress from one syllable to the other turns a thing into an action in dozens of common word pairs.
Real conditions, real results: fill the gaps
Complete real conditions and their results, using the right form in each half of the sentence.
Real future possibilities and their results
How English links a real future possibility to its result, and why one half of the sentence stays in the present.
Connectors that hold an essay together
The connectors that make an essay's logic visible, grouped by the relationship each one signals.
To have enough money to buy something
A verb that almost always follows an ability word, usually in a negative sentence or a question.
Ready-made lines for opening and closing an email
Opening and closing lines for workplace email, sorted by how formal the relationship is.
To decide to do something later instead of now
A neutral two-part verb for postponing, and where its pronoun object has to go.
Connecting your ideas: choose the linker
Work out the logical relationship between two ideas and choose the connector that signals it.
The small words that follow common adjectives
Common adjectives with the fixed small word that follows each one.
Present perfect or past simple?
Decide whether each sentence needs the present perfect or the past simple, then check the answers.
The irregular past forms you cannot avoid
The ten irregular past forms you will meet every single day, with both past forms side by side.
Present perfect continuous
An action that started in the past and is still going on now.