The 13 most common B2 adjectives found after the definite article are: actual, appropriate, current, entire, global, major, official, overall, potential, primary, royal, standard, ultimate A search in iWeb for: the _JJ 1 THE BEST 4698241 2 THE OTHER 3603343 3 THE NEW 3566930 4 THE ONLY 2604971 5 THE FOLLOWING 2598260 6 THE RIGHT …
Are you allowed to say that?
Are you attracted to me?
Were you born in a barn?
What’s it called?
LEAVE ME ALONE
TAKE IT EASY
GET IT RIGHT
DRIVING ME CRAZY
We are interested in finding the most common noun phrases after ‘open to‘ that complete more abstract ideas such as willingness to consider something or something is likely to happen. In the English Vocabulary Profile: open to discussion/suggestions, etc. = C1 willing to consider a discussion/suggestions, etc. open to abuse/criticism, etc. = C2 likely to …
In this post, we explore long complex noun phrases in the object position after the verb ‘have‘. Here is a search in the iWeb corpus for: _VH _A _JJ _NN of 1 HAS A LONG HISTORY OF 12459 C1+ Huff Hoyle has a long history of bad business practices. listen 2 HAVE A WIDE RANGE OF 9459 B1 You have a wide range …
The CLAWS tagger does not always tag the difference between adjectives and past participles perfectly, so we do a search in the iWeb corpus with the query: _VB *ed to_II 1 IS COMMITTED TO 117911 C2 adjective It‘s true, I could use someone who is committed to putting an end to Mr. White. Live by Night 2 BE ADDED TO 115128 …
In this post, we look for longer noun phrases with advanced vocabulary in the MOVIE corpus with the query: _AT _NN of _AT _JJ _NN 1 A MEMBER OF THE COMMUNIST PARTY 59 2 A HELL OF A LONG TIME 31 3 THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES 27 4 A MEMBER OF THE ROYAL …
article + noun + OF + article + adjective + noun Read More »
In this post, we search for the most common adjectives found before the noun ‘order‘. For example: Now, that might sound pretty good, but ask yourself what would happen under our current economic and political order? TED A search in the NOW corpus for _J order_N 1 PUBLIC ORDER 37962 2 RESTRAINING ORDER 35066 3 STAY-AT-HOME ORDER 21381 4 NEW ORDER 20398 5 MIDDLE ORDER 16531 6 INTERIM …
self-driving self-employed self-esteem self-determination
The following grammar pattern does not have an entry in the English Profile. It relates to questions with stranded prepositions which are generally pegged at B2. It also relates to either A1 possession or ownership = have got or A2 modality = have got to do something. The overall complexity of this pattern is at least …
Here are the most common adjectives ending in -ful found in the NOW corpus: *Note, 60% of them are not included in the English Vocabulary Profile. The twelve most common adjectives that end with the suffix -ful all have positive meanings: 1 SUCCESSFUL 1589851 2 POWERFUL 1151163 3 BEAUTIFUL 1091675 4 WONDERFUL 595077 5 USEFUL …
At A2 in the English Vocabulary Profile, the adjective ‘own’ can be used with a possessive to emphasize that someone or something belongs or relates to the person or thing mentioned. This phrase is also often found with advanced phrases, and sometimes they are C1 adverbial phrases related to the manner (way) in which something …
In the English Vocabulary Profile, come in useful|handy are C2. A search in iWeb corpus for: COME IN _JJ . 1 COME IN HANDY. 9001 2 COMES IN HANDY. 4142 Huh, comes in handy on the cash register. listen 3 CAME IN HANDY. 660 4 COME IN USEFUL. 257 All these moves will come in useful in real life when she grows up. listen 5 COMES IN BLACK. 116 This structure …
In the English Vocabulary Profile: values = B2 the beliefs people have about what is right and wrong and what is most important in life, which control their behaviour A search in NOW corpus for: _JJ values_N 1 DEMOCRATIC VALUES 11972 Give a full and detailed account of who supports you, where your arms and supplies come from and that your aim is the overthrow of established democratic values. listen 2 SHARED VALUES 10229 3 MORAL VALUES 8609 4 CULTURAL VALUES …
While searching for structures in the English Vocabulary Profile, we sometimes find structures we are not sure why they are listed at a certain complexity. For example: walk NOUN A2 a journey that you make by walking, often for enjoyment a short/ten-minute, etc. walk = B2 a journey that takes a short time/ten minutes, etc. …
Why say “is of interest” instead of “is interesting“? ‘is of + noun‘ is more formal and in academic writing, we use the noun form of a word more often. More importantly, ‘of+noun’ functions as a noun in this position. Therefore, it can often collocate correctly with modifiers. For example: “greatest interest” is much more …
In the English Vocabulary Profile, be welcome to do sth B1 used to tell someone that they can certainly do something, if they want to A search NOW corpus for: welcome _TO _V 1 WELCOME TO COMMENT 8459 2 WELCOME TO JOIN 7347 3 WELCOME TO USE 6739 4 WELCOME TO ATTEND 5863 You‘re welcome to attend all meetings. …
B2: SAFE TO SAY THAT | IMPORTANT TO REMEMBER THAT
‘Twee‘ is unlisted in the English Vocabulary Profile. Google Oxford defines it as: BRITISH excessively or affectedly quaint, pretty, or sentimental. adverb: affectedly in a way that is artificial, pretentious, and designed to impress. adjective: quaint attractively unusual or old-fashioned. adjective sentimental of or prompted by feelings of tenderness, sadness, or nostalgia. — A search for collocates …
A search for nouns collocating with ‘wild‘ in the NOW corpus: 1 CARD 41920 This most common collocate is unlisted in the English Vocabulary Profile. A google definition of ‘wild card‘: a playing card that can have any value, suit, colour, or other property in a game at the discretion of the player holding it. …
