A2 Grammar

Complete A2 grammar contents

Choose a grammar topic to open the full explanation and practice page. Work through the sections in order or jump directly to the grammar you need.

41 topics · 16 sections

Present tenses

Connect routines and actions now with recent experiences.

Present simple vs present continuous

Choose the present simple for routines, facts and states, and the present continuous for actions happening now, temporary situations and changes.

Present perfect: form and use

Use have/has + past participle to connect past actions and experiences to now, especially when the exact finished time is not important.

Present perfect or past simple?

Choose the past simple for a finished past time and the present perfect when the time is unfinished, unstated, or the result matters now.

Past tenses

Describe finished events and background actions in the past.

Past simple: form and use

Use the past simple for completed past actions, sequences and states at a finished time.

Past continuous and past simple

Use the past continuous for an action in progress in the past and the past simple for the shorter event that interrupted or happened during it.

Past perfect

Use had + past participle when you need to show clearly that one past event happened before another past event or past time.

Future

Express plans, predictions, decisions and arrangements.

Will vs be going to

Choose will mainly for decisions made now, offers and opinion-based predictions, and be going to for earlier intentions or predictions based on evidence you can see now.

Present continuous for future arrangements

Use the present continuous for personal arrangements that are already organized, often with a future time or place.

Verb tense review

Bring the core A2 tense system together.

A2 verb tense review

Choose among present simple, present continuous, past simple, past continuous, present perfect and common future forms according to time and meaning.

Modals and verb patterns

Express obligation, advice, possibility, habits and common verb patterns.

Have to, don't have to, must, mustn't

Distinguish necessity, lack of necessity and prohibition using have to and must forms.

Should and shouldn't

Use should and shouldn't to give advice, recommend actions and say what is or is not a good idea.

Might and might not

Use might and might not to express an uncertain possibility in the present or future.

May vs might

Use may and might for possibility. The difference in certainty is often small; may is also common for polite or formal permission.

Used to

Use used to + base verb for repeated past actions or past states that were true before but are not true now.

Using go

Use go in common movement, activity and change patterns, including go to + place, go + -ing activity and go + adjective.

Using get

Recognize common uses of get meaning receive, obtain, become, arrive and fetch, and use frequent get expressions naturally.

Do vs make

Use do mainly for tasks, work and activities, and make mainly for creating, producing, preparing or causing something; learn common collocations.

Verbs with two objects

Use verbs such as give, send, show and lend with either person + thing or thing + to/for + person, depending on the verb.

Stative vs dynamic verbs

Choose simple or continuous forms by thinking about meaning: state verbs normally describe conditions, while action meanings can often use continuous forms.

Phrasal verbs

Recognize common phrasal verbs and whether their object can move between the verb and particle.

Conditionals

Connect conditions with real and unreal results.

First conditional and future time clauses

Use the first conditional for realistic future possibilities and present forms after future time conjunctions such as when, before and as soon as.

Second conditional

Use the second conditional for imaginary, unlikely or unreal present and future situations.

Passive

Focus on the action or result rather than the doer.

Present and past simple passive

Use be + past participle when the action or receiver is more important than the person who does it.

Reported speech

Report what another person said without quoting exact words.

Reported speech

Report what somebody said by choosing say or tell correctly and changing pronouns, time references and often tense when the reporting verb is in the past.

-ing and infinitive

Use infinitives and gerunds in common A2 patterns.

Purpose with to and for

Explain purpose with to + base verb for an action, or for + noun/-ing form for the purpose or function of a thing.

Infinitives and gerunds

Learn common verb patterns with to-infinitives and -ing forms, and remember that a verb after a preposition normally takes -ing.

Articles, pronouns and determiners

Choose pronouns and quantity words more accurately.

Pronouns and possessives

Distinguish subject pronouns, object pronouns, possessive adjectives and possessive pronouns.

Something, anything, nothing

Choose some-, any- and no- words according to whether the sentence is positive, negative, a question, or an offer/request where a positive answer is expected.

Much, many, little, few, some, any

Choose quantifiers by noun type and meaning, especially the important contrast between little/few and a little/a few.

Too, too much, too many, enough

Express excess with too/too much/too many and sufficiency with enough.

Most, most of, the most

Distinguish most for general groups, most of for a specific group and the most for superlatives.

Relative clauses

Add identifying information about people, things and places.

Defining relative clauses

Use defining relative clauses to identify exactly which person, thing or place you mean, without commas around the essential information.

Auxiliary verbs

Use helping verbs for agreement and sentence structure.

So and neither

Agree with positive statements using so and with negative statements using neither, matching the auxiliary or modal in the first sentence.

Do, be and have as auxiliaries

Recognize how do, be and have work as auxiliary verbs to build questions, negatives, continuous forms and perfect forms.

Adjectives and adverbs

Compare people and things and describe change over time.

Comparatives and superlatives

Compare two or more people, things and actions using comparative and superlative forms.

No longer, any longer, anymore

Say that a situation has stopped being true with no longer, not ... any longer or not ... anymore, paying attention to word position.

Conjunctions and clauses

Link ideas with contrast, reason, result and time.

Although, however, because, so and time connectors

Link ideas by showing reason, result, contrast and time, and choose a connector that fits the grammar of the sentence as well as the meaning.

Prepositions

Express movement and common time relationships.

Prepositions of movement

Describe paths and directions with prepositions such as into, out of, across, through, along, over and past.

On time vs in time; at the end vs in the end

Separate four fixed expressions: on time means not late, in time means early enough, at the end means at the final part of something, and in the end means finally.

Questions

Build more flexible questions.

Question forms

Form yes/no and wh- questions accurately across common present, past, continuous, perfect and modal structures.

Subject questions and questions with prepositions

Ask who or what performs an action without do-support, and keep necessary prepositions in natural question positions.