Learn English | A new lesson every week
Book your course now

Grammar

Countable and Uncountable Nouns: Comparing Quantities

Average: 3.9 (35 votes)

You can compare quantities in different ways, depending on the type of noun you are referring to.

Have you heard of countable and uncountable nouns?

When talking about uncountable nouns; such as time, coffee, rice, milk and love; you would need to use more than and less than.

Take a look at the following examples:

There is less chocolate ice cream in my bowl than in Julian’s bowl.

Three-word 'As' Expressions

Average: 4.5 (24 votes)

You will find the following phrases useful while speaking English, as well as writing in English.

See what we did there? That was the first example of the idiomatic expression as well as.

We have chosen four different phrases for you. Each one is easy to remember and comes with two examples:

As well as

Meaning:  in addition to something or someone else; also

Examples:

Irregular Adjectives in Comparatives

Average: 3.3 (122 votes)

Regular Adjectives

Most adjectives follow one of these rules when making comparatives.

One syllable words add er:

New becomes newer

Two or more syllable words add more first:

Intelligent becomes more intelligent

Words that end in y become ier:

pretty become prettier

Words that end in er add er:

Clever becomes cleverer

Modal Verbs

Average: 3.5 (36 votes)

Modal verbs are often difficult to learn because they can be used in a variety of situations. They are used with other verbs to express ability, obligation, possibility, and permission.

Let's take a look at some uses.

Can

Can is used with ability ("I can speak English") and possibility ("I can come too").

Answering Questions

Average: 4.1 (35 votes)

Which is the best way to answer this question?

Question: Where did you go?

Answer: I go to school.
Answer: I went to school.

The correct answer is I went to school. We must use this answer because the question uses the past tense, did. Our response has to use the past tense too i.e. I went.

In case or In case of?

Average: 4.1 (51 votes)

These two expressions are very similar, they both basically mean if something happens. The main difference in use is grammatical.

The meaning of these two sentences is the same.

She took an umbrella, just in case it rains.
She took an umbrella in case of rain.

In both cases, she took an umbrella because it may rain later.

Adverbs of manner

Average: 3.6 (297 votes)

Adverbs of manner are used to tell us the way or how something is done.

An adverb can be added to a verb to modify its meaning.

"She plays piano." - An adverb of manner can be added to the verb (play) to modify its meaning and give us more information on how she plays piano.

"She plays piano beautifully."

"She plays piano softly."

Be and Auxiliary Verbs in Simple Questions

Average: 3.9 (43 votes)

Simple Questions are questions that can be answered with Yes or No.

For example:

Are you happy?

The form of this question is: be + subject + adjective

The adjective can be changed to different words but the be + subject stays the same:

Be + subject + other form

Is she here?
Am I right?
Is James coming with us?
Was David listening?

Much or Many?

Average: 3.5 (273 votes)

We use use much and many in questions and negative sentences. They both show an amount of something.

Use 'Much' with uncountable nouns

We use much with singular nouns.

Question: "How much petrol is in the car?"
Negative clause: "We don't have much time left."

How to use Articles

Average: 3.6 (221 votes)

What's wrong with this sentence?

"Boy played in the park."

The problem is that the noun 'boy' (the subjects) cannot be used without an article. We could say, for example, 'The boy', 'A boy' or 'My neighbour's boy'. Generally, the articles a and the are used with nouns.

When to use The

Use the before singular and plural nouns when the noun is specific.