Two friends compare their weekends on a Monday morning
Two friends trade weekend stories before work, one of them visibly short of sleep.
Grammar
Grammar here means the patterns that decide word order, verb form and sentence shape - the rules learners actually break, not the ones grammar books argue about. Work through it and your sentences start sounding deliberate rather than lucky. This is the largest subject on the site, running from the first present-tense patterns at A1 up to advanced word-order effects at C1, plus a few traps that catch first-language speakers. Start at your own level rather than at the top.
Choose the word that places the sentence in time or in space
Choose the preposition that places each sentence in time or in space, or decide that none is needed.
Punctual, or early enough? Two expressions that are not interchangeable
One small word separates arriving punctually from arriving with time to spare.
Put in the missing word, or leave the gap empty
Put the right article in front of each noun, or recognise the cases where nothing belongs there.
The sound that decides which form goes in front
The article in front of a noun is chosen by the first sound you hear, never by the first letter.
Point, surface, container: one scale for both time and place
Point, surface and container: one scale that chooses the preposition for both time and place.
Which word goes in front of the noun, and when nothing does
The indefinite article, the definite article and no article at all, with the meaning each choice carries.
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.
The opening phrase that describes the wrong person
A phrase at the start of a sentence quietly borrows its subject from the main clause, which is how confident writers end up attributing an action to whatever happens to follow the comma.
Grant the point first: complete each opening
Complete the fixed frames that grant the other side a point before taking it back.
Granting your opponent a point, then taking it back
A set of frozen openings that let you concede the other side's point in the first half of the sentence so that your own argument lands with full weight in the second.
Singular opener, plural noun: the grammar rule your course left out
The singular opener turns up before plural nouns in every kind of English speech. Here is why it happens, when the rule genuinely bends, and what to write.
The three present forms of the most important verb
The three present forms of the most frequent verb in English, and which subject takes which.
Choosing the right present ending
Choose the present ending by deciding whether the subject is one other person or thing.
One thing or many: which opener fits
Decide whether the noun after the gap names one thing or several, then pick the matching opener.
Saying that something exists
How English announces that something exists, and how the noun that follows chooses between the two openers.
How the verb steps back when you pass on someone's words
What happens to tenses, pronouns and time expressions when you pass on yesterday's words today.
Shifting the verb back when reporting
Move the verb one step back in time when passing on what someone said.
Building the regular past
Build the regular past form, watching the spelling changes that happen before the ending.
The small letter that changes the verb when someone else acts
Why the verb gains one small letter when the subject is a single other person or thing - and nowhere else.
The regular way to talk about finished actions
One ending turns a regular verb into the past - when to use it, and how the spelling shifts along the way.
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.
Plural forms that refuse to follow the rule
The nouns that change inside the word to form a plural, and the few that do not change at all.
Same sound, different word: traps even native writers fall into
Word sets that sound the same but are spelled differently, the slips fluent writers make at speed.
What comes after the verb: the two patterns
Which verbs are followed by the -ing form and which by the to-form, learned pair by pair.
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.
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.