mistake

What a + NOUN PHRASE

A2, article, B1, CLAUSES, DETERMINERS, exclamations, indefinite, informal, NOUNS, opinion, phrases, spoken

Here are examples of exclamatory sentences starting with “What”. They express strong emotions or feelings.
“What” is a predeterminer that precedes the indefinite article “a”.
The phrases following “What a” are noun phrases, often modified by adjectives for emphasis (e.g., “great”, “wonderful”).
Many sentences are followed by adverbial phrases (e.g., “to save time”, “to be alive”) that provide more information about the noun.
These sentences are common in spoken English to convey strong feelings. They’re less common in formal written English but might appear in dialogue or informal writing.
In the English Grammar Profile, such usage of ‘What’ falls under A2 level for expressing strong opinions.
The most common collocates in corpora are words like “great”, “waste”, “idea”, etc., often followed by infinitive phrases or prepositional phrases acting as adverbs.
This structure allows for a wide range of expressions, from surprise (“What a surprise!”) to disappointment (“What a waste of money!”) to admiration (“What a great idea for a party!”). It’s a versatile and expressive part of English grammar.

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MY | YOUR + superlative + noun

A2, ADJECTIVES, NOUNS, phrases, PRONOUNS, range

The formation of noun phrases using ‘my’ or ‘your’ + superlative adjective + noun in English grammar.

A noun phrase acts as a noun and describes a noun, while a superlative adjective compares a noun to the rest of a group and indicates the highest degree of a quality.

For instance, in the sentence “That’s your biggest mistake,” ‘your biggest mistake’ is a noun phrase where ‘biggest’ is the superlative adjective and ‘mistake’ is the noun.

The text also provides examples of such phrases commonly used in English, such as “your best bet,” “my best friend,” “your best friend,” and so on. It mentions that using A2 vocabulary or higher in this structure will probably be considered B1 context.

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If + PRESENT SIMPLE + MODAL CLAUSE

B1, CLAUSES, conditional, FUTURE, MODALITY, possibility, PRESENT, result, simple

In the English Grammar Profile, B1 point 74 in the category of CLAUSES/conditional is defined as: PRESENT SIMPLE ‘IF’ CLAUSE + MODAL, FUTURE, POSSIBLE OUTCOME: introduce a possible future condition, with modal verbs in the main clause, to talk about a possible result. A search in TED corpus for expert examples: If you‘ve got a couple of final words you want to share, that would be great. listen So if you look that up, you can hear more of those tunes. listen PELIC

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