Writing is an important skill to develop, especially if you are going to use English in the workplace or university; making sure your grammar is as accurate as possible is one way to communicate your message clearly and leave a positive impression on the reader. Here are my top 5 tips for improving your use of grammar in your writing:

• Consider the Style

What is the purpose of your writing?  Who is the audience? 

Passive sentences are all about changing the focus of what you are talking about.

For example: Somebody stole my bike (this is a normal ACTIVE sentence)

Subject, verb, object

Subject = Somebody (the person doing the verb)

Verb = stole (the past simple of 'to steal')

Object = my bike

But I am not interested in that horrible 'somebody'. I am MORE interested in my poor little bike.

So, by changing to a sentence with passive grammar, the whole focus of what I am saying changes.

Third conditionals (sometimes called Type 3 conditionals) are sentences where the speaker is thinking about the past and how it could have been different.

So, normally a 3rd conditional sentence expresses some kind of regret.

This grammar construction is sometimes known as a 'true hypothetical' and that is a good description because we are always talking about somehow changing the past, but as no-one has invented a time machine, it is impossible to go back and change the past, so all 3rd conditional sentences are therefore 100% hypothetical

Present perfect is a grammar tense that causes a lot of problems for learners and results in lots of mistakes.

It is difficult for students to separate the past simple and the present perfect in their mind.

Often  it is because there is no direct translation for present perfect in students' own mother tongue language.

The best way to think about these tenses is this:

PAST SIMPLE

When you are thinking/speaking/writing about an action from the past that has definitely finished, then use the PAST SIMPLE.

We are almost at the end of week 2 of the 20 Day English challenge to boost your English in 5 minutes every day.

Today the short test will challenge your knowledge of grammar. 

Specifically, the questions will cover small, annoying and tricky grammar issues like

Modal verbs are super common in English.

They appear so frequently that learners begin using them in even the first ever English classes they study in.

Can, will, must, could etc are the 'helping verbs' (also called auxiliary verbs) used in millions of sentences.

Let's look briefly at the basic meanings of these auxiliary modal verbs...

MODAL VERBS BASIC DEFINITION

CAN = something is possible, or it is allowed, or someone has the ability to do something

We are at the end of the first week of the SGI 20 Day English Challenge!

I hope you have completed all the other quick quizzes every day to give a nice boost to your English language skills.

Day Four of the 20 day English challenge! Today we have a quiz for you to test your knowledge of English grammar.

If you are just joining us now there are the previous 3 day's tests to complete to boost your English knowledge

Day 1: Spelling quiz

Day 2: Email sentences test

New year = new you. We are doing 5 minutes of quick English improvement every day to start 2017 off just right.
How did you do with yesterday's English spelling challenge? Did you get every question correct?

Today, we look at perfecting Email sentences with a 10-question quick quiz. Most of the sentences are from a business context: some are formal and others are less formal, but all the correct versions are 100% useful.

The ISE B1 English exam (that cab drivers in London have to pass to renew their Private Hire Driver's Licence, before 31st March 2017) is a test with Reading, Writing, Listening and Speaking questions to test your overall level of English language skills.

There are 2 parts. First is the Reading and writing test - this will take 2 hours.

Next is the Speaking and Listening test. This is much shorter and will only last for 18 minutes.

ISE B1 Test: Reading and Writing tasks

In the reading and writing part of the test, there are 4 separate tasks.

Should you write 'would have' or 'would of'?

Is there a difference between the two?

Is would've a word?

The problem with this English grammar issue is that when you SAY 'would have' out loud, it can sound like 'would of'.

It is a mistake that people make a lot, even some native speakers of English make this mistake!

WOULD HAVE

Examples:

When do you use you're and when do you use your?

What's the difference between it's and its?

How do you use they're or their and there?

(If you think you already know, go to the bottom of this page and take the grammar test. If you are not sure, keep reading... and then take the test)

Most students that take the IELTS test find that the writing exam is the most difficult task.

Native speakers make English grammar mistakes every day!

Sometimes it is because the person changes their mind halfway through a sentence:

Example - I haven't seen her... yesterday.*

The person was perhaps going to say something like, "I haven't seen her this week".

But then perhaps the speaker suddenly thought about yesterday. In this sentence, the present perfect grammar tense should be replaced with past simple because of the use of the time marker adverb, yesterday.