actually

Why do I believe that the English Grammar Profile and Vocabulary profile should be merged? Well, they both have tons of fantastic information but it would be better if they worked together. If we use the grammar profile for single token grammar points such as “actually” notice the lack of information in the EGP:

Point 34 in the Adverb category A2 and pont 37 B1 both list ‘actually’ to indicate an attitude or viewpoint as both limited range and increasing range.

As with all of these clashes found on the English Grammar Profile, I opt for the lower level as the default. Since students can use the grammar at A2, then that is the only place it should get listed as a marking feature.

However, when we are given the chance to investigate further in the EVP we soon find much more useful distinctions:

▶ ADVERB
TRUTH
A2 used when you are emphasizing what is really true or what really happened

SURPRISE
B1 used when you are emphasizing something surprising

OPPOSITE
B2 used when you are correcting someone, disagreeing with someone, or saying no to a request

Finally, it’s always great to see how a point works outside of learner language:

Collocates when searching 4 spaces either side of “actually” on NOW corpus:

1 QUITE 22336
2 PRETTY 13321
3 HAPPENING 6259
4 SURPRISED 4458
5 ENJOYABLE 2211

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