Grammaire

determiners

Determiners help describe nouns, including countable (e.g., "apples") and uncountable nouns (e.g., "water").
Countable nouns: Use numbers or words like "many" or "few" (e.g., "three books," "few opportunities").
Uncountable nouns: Use words like "much," "some," or "little" (e.g., "much respect," "little time").
Possessive determiners (e.g., "my," "your") work for both types.
Articles like "a," "an," and "the" are also determiners, showing if something is specific or not.

Understanding these words makes communication clearer and more accurate.

adjectives

Adjectives describe things and feelings, and they change form to compare or show extremes:

Regular Adjectives:
- Add "er" for comparatives (e.g., "safer") and "est" for superlatives (e.g., "safest").
- Use "more" and "most" for adjectives with two or more syllables (e.g., "more secure," "most secure").
Irregular Adjectives: Change in unique ways:
- Good → better, best
- Bad → worse, worst
- Far → farther/further, farthest/furthest
- Little → less, least
- Much/Many → more, most
Special Cases:
- Adjectives ending in "y" change to "ier" and "iest" (e.g., "happy," "happier," "happiest").
- Use "than" with comparatives and "the" with superlatives (e.g., "faster than," "the fastest").

Comparatives and superlatives

help compare things or describe the highest degree of a quality:

Comparatives: Compare two things (e.g., "bigger," "more productive"). Use "than" to connect them (e.g., "My desk is bigger than yours").
Superlatives: Describe the highest degree (e.g., "biggest," "most productive"). Use "the" before the adjective (e.g., "This is the biggest desk").

How to Form Them:

One-syllable adjectives: Add "-er" for comparatives and "-est" for superlatives.

Example: "fast → faster → fastest."

Ending in 'e': Add "-r" or "-st."

Example: "large → larger → largest."

Ending in a consonant + vowel + consonant: Double the last consonant before adding "-er" or "-est."

Example: "big → bigger → biggest."

Two or more syllables: Use "more" for comparatives and "most" for superlatives.

Example: "beautiful → more beautiful → most beautiful."

Ending in 'y': Replace "y" with "ier" or "iest."

Example: "happy → happier → happiest."

Irregular forms: Learn these by heart (e.g., "good → better → best").

passive /personal passive sentences

The Impersonal Passive

structure is used for: Things that are thought, believed, said, or reported.

We form it like this: It + be + past participle of reporting verb + that + clause

“It is believed that the tests have produced false positives.”

Personal Passive sentences

We often use verbs like believe, expect, find, know, report, say, think, or understand.

We form it like this:

Subject + Passive Verb + to-Infinitive : “The tests are known to produce false positives.”

Relative Pronouns

THAT, WHICH, WHO, WHOM & WHOSE

They are used for Relative Clauses, which tell us more about people and things.

WHAT, WHEN, WHERE, HOW, WHO & WHY are used for Nominal Relative Clauses, where we talk about the thing that.

“The beta test which we ran recently has been very useful.”

“That's what I was talking about during the meeting.”

“That’s who I’m talking about. She’s going to run the new project.”

“It’s not my team whose data is being questioned.”

The relative pronoun which we use the most is what.

emphatic do

Sometimes we add "do" before the main verb of the sentence.
This is called the Emphatic do, and it is very common in spoken English when we want to add emphasis to affirmative sentences.

"I did follow the instructions to the letter.”

This example suggests there was a problem and the speaker emphasises that they did everything they were supposed to do.

With really or absolutely, the Emphatic "do" is also common.
“I really did follow every instruction to the letter.”

For questions or confirmation, also:
“They do understand the gravity of missing this deadline, don’t they?”

Conjunction

FANBOYS:

We can remember the most common conjunctions with the mnemonic ~~FANBOYS:~~

Conjunctions usually connect two phrases, so we normally find them in the middle of the sentence.

However, we can sometimes start a sentence with a conjunction.

“For you, this bottleneck issue should be easier to solve.” “For me, it was too complicated.”

People often do this in conversation. After a pause, they continue, adding more information.

“I wasn’t able to resolve the timeouts issue…. So, anyway, the problem continues to be disruptive.”

In informal conversation, it doesn’t always sound like a new sentence…..Nor do people pay much attention….Or really care one way or another.

Inversion

We normally use inversion to ask a question or add emphasis to our point.

Inversion with questions

The most common form of inversion. The auxiliary or modal verb comes before the subject.
“Can you fix this bug?”

Inversions with expressions beginning with not

We normally use them to add emphasis or express annoyance. The subject and auxiliary verb are inverted after not + the initial clause:
“Not for one moment did they think to report the API failure rates.”

“Not only does the issue happen when a player moves up a level but also during scene changes.”

Inversion with adverbial phrases.

We use inversion with a negative adverb or adverbial phrase at the beginning of the sentence.

“No sooner had we thought the problem was fixed than we started having issues with the threading model.”

“Under no circumstances should new software be released before testing.”

Negative clauses with neither or nor

The inversion comes in the second clause.
“They didn't fix the bugs, nor did they try.”

Inversions can be used with conditionals : replace if with the auxiliary or modal verb in formal situations.

“Had I known the deadline was next week, I would have spent more time working on it.”

“Were I you, I would pay attention to this video!”