Question tags: the tune decides whether you are asking or checking
The same question tag can check or genuinely ask, and only the tune of the voice tells the listener which.
C1 Advanced
At C1, accuracy is mostly no longer the problem; effect is. You can be correct and still sound like a textbook, because the choices that carry emphasis and tone are the ones nobody drilled with you. The small collection here works on rearranging a sentence for dramatic weight, and on the figurative expressions that carry real meaning in a meeting. Start with the lesson on that rearranged word order and do its practice straight after; the rest stands alone, and B2 is still worth a pass for breadth.
Coffee-machine small talk about a much-delayed office relocation
Two near-strangers fill the wait at the coffee machine with small talk about a move that keeps slipping.
To do something wrong and escape the punishment it deserved
A three-part verb for doing something wrong and escaping the consequences; it never splits.
Three-part verbs that never split, and where each sits on the register scale
Ten three-word verbs that never separate, with a register note on where a single-word verb reads better.
Why you cannot hear where one word ends and the next begins
How fluent speech runs words together, and the patterns that let you hear the joins.
Treating a complicated question as if it had one easy answer
An adjective that always criticises: it accuses an answer of ignoring the real complexity.
When two near-synonyms describe the same behaviour and only one is a compliment
Pairs of near-synonyms that describe the same behaviour, where one praises and the other criticises.
Rewrite the action as a noun
Restate the action in each sentence as a noun, the move that lifts an essay's register.
Shortening a clause down to its verb form
How a full clause shortens to its verb form, what the shortened clause can and cannot do, and the classic error.
Turning actions into nouns to lift the register
Turning verbs into nouns to lift the register of an essay, with the endings that build each noun.
How to use English idioms correctly: what to learn, and what only to recognise
English idioms are mostly a skill for understanding others, not for speaking. Common examples with their meanings, and a filter for the few worth saying.
To use what you already have to gain an advantage
The corporate verb for using an asset or position you already have to gain more from a situation.
Dramatic negative openings: rebuild the sentence
Rebuild each sentence after its dramatic negative opening, putting the auxiliary before the subject.
Starting with a negative for dramatic effect
The formal word-order swap that follows a fronted negative phrase, and why it makes writing sound emphatic.
Changing the rules after the game has started
A football idiom for complaining that someone in authority changed the target after you had aimed.