B1 Grammar

Complete B1 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 · 15 sections

Present tenses

Contrast current situations, past experience and ongoing duration.

Present simple or present continuous

Choose between stable routines and states, and temporary, changing or currently developing situations.

Past simple or present perfect

Choose the past simple for finished past time and the present perfect for experience, recent results or periods that connect to now.

Present perfect simple and continuous

Choose the present perfect simple when result or completed quantity matters most, and the continuous when duration, repeated effort or recent activity matters most.

Past tenses

Sequence events and background information in narratives.

Past simple, continuous and perfect

Combine past simple, past continuous and past perfect to show completed events, background actions and earlier past events.

Future

Choose future forms according to intention, evidence, arrangement or decision.

Will, going to and present continuous

Choose future forms by viewpoint: will for decisions/offers/opinion predictions, going to for prior intentions or evidence, and present continuous for fixed arrangements.

Verb tense review

Integrate the B1 tense system.

B1 verb tense review

Choose tense and aspect by combining time reference, completion, duration, background, sequence and future viewpoint.

Modals and verb patterns

Express obligation, ability, deduction, preference, habits and advice.

Have to, must and should

Distinguish external necessity, strong obligation, prohibition and advice using have to, must and should.

Can, could and be able to

Use can/could for general ability and be able to when tense or a specific successful achievement requires a fuller form.

Modals of deduction

Use must, might, could and can't to express how certain you are about a present situation.

Usually, used to, be used to, get used to

Separate current habits, former habits, familiarity and the process of becoming familiar: usually, used to, be used to and get used to do different jobs.

Had better and it's time

Give strong advice with had better and say an action is overdue with it's time + past form.

Would rather and would sooner

Express preferences about actions using would rather/would sooner + base verb, and preferences about another person's action with a past form.

B1 phrasal verbs 1

Use common travel and movement phrasal verbs accurately, including separable object patterns.

B1 phrasal verbs 2

Use common study, work and information phrasal verbs and their object patterns.

B1 phrasal verbs 3

Use common phrasal verbs for relationships, problems, persistence and stopping activities.

Conditionals

Move from real possibilities to unreal and past-unreal situations.

First conditional and future time clauses

Use present forms in conditions and future time clauses to describe realistic future outcomes.

Second conditional

Use past forms plus would/could/might to discuss hypothetical present or future situations.

First vs second conditional

Choose the first conditional when the speaker treats a future possibility as realistic, and the second when the speaker presents it as hypothetical or more distant.

Third conditional

Use the third conditional to imagine a different past and its unreal past result.

Passive

Use passive structures across more tenses and compare them with active voice.

Passive verb forms

Build passive structures in present, past, perfect, continuous, future and modal forms with be + past participle.

Active vs passive voice

Choose active voice when the doer matters and passive voice when the receiver, process or result is more important.

Reported speech

Report statements and questions with appropriate changes.

Reported speech

Report statements and questions by changing viewpoint, tense, pronouns and time references, while using statement word order inside reported questions.

Gerunds and infinitives

Choose between base, infinitive and -ing verb patterns.

Do, to do or doing

Choose bare infinitive, to-infinitive or -ing form after common verbs, modals, prepositions and expressions.

Articles, pronouns and quantifiers

Control articles and quantity expressions with more precision.

A, an, the or no article

Choose articles according to first mention, specificity, uniqueness, general reference and common fixed patterns.

Reflexive pronouns

Use reflexive pronouns when the subject and object are the same person/thing, and for emphasis or the idea of doing something alone.

Quantifiers: much, many, a lot, little, few, some, any, no

Choose quantity expressions according to noun type, sentence polarity and whether the amount feels sufficient or insufficient.

All and both

Use all for three or more/general totality and both for exactly two, with correct placement around nouns, pronouns and auxiliaries.

Both, either and neither

Refer precisely to two people or things: both means the two together, either means one or the other, and neither means not one and not the other.

Any, no and none

Express unrestricted choice or zero quantity with any, no and none in different sentence positions.

Another, other and others

Distinguish another for one more/different singular item, other before nouns and others as a pronoun.

Relative clauses

Add essential or extra information to noun phrases.

Defining and non-defining relative clauses

Distinguish information needed to identify a noun from extra information, using appropriate pronouns, commas and omission.

Auxiliary verbs

Use auxiliaries to check and confirm information.

Question tags

Build short confirmation questions that match the tense, auxiliary and polarity of the main statement.

Adjectives and adverbs

Make comparisons and describe reactions, causes, degree and compound qualities.

Comparatives and superlatives

Use a wider range of comparative structures, equality patterns and superlatives with experience expressions.

-ed and -ing adjectives

Use -ed adjectives for how someone feels and -ing adjectives for the person, thing or situation that causes the feeling.

So, such, so much and so many

Express strong degree with so before adjectives/adverbs, such before noun phrases and so much/many before nouns.

Compound adjectives with numbers

Build compound adjectives such as a two-day trip with singular nouns and hyphens before another noun.

Conjunctions and clauses

Express contrast, purpose and reason with more varied structures.

Clauses of contrast, purpose and reason

Link ideas with although/even though, despite/in spite of, because/because of and purpose structures such as to and so that.

Prepositions

Develop accuracy with common dependent prepositions and time expressions.

Verb + preposition

Learn frequent verb-preposition combinations as fixed patterns because the choice is often not predictable from meaning alone.

Adjective + preposition

Use common adjective-preposition combinations such as interested in, good at and responsible for accurately.

During, for and while

Choose during + noun for when something happened, for + period for duration, and while + clause for simultaneous actions.

For, since and from

Express duration and starting points accurately with for, since and from.