Sunday, June 30, 2013

Phrasal verbs with get

There are a lot of phrasal verbs with get. Here are a couple of exercises with 24 of them. They are taken from a previous post on various meanings of get and idioms with get, linked to below.

Saturday, June 15, 2013

Infinitives after passives

Passive verbs are sometimes followed by infinitives and occasionally by -ing forms. In this post we look at some examples.
  • 1. Verb + object + infinitive
  • 2. Infinitives after wh-words
  • 3. Infinitives of purpose, etc
  • 4. Infinitive forms
  • 5. Passive reporting structures
  • 6. Passives after preparatory it and there
  • 7. Actions after verbs of perception - see, hear etc
  • 8. Bringing it all together.

Saturday, June 1, 2013

Passive reporting structures

In informal language we often use impersonal expressions like:
  • People say that the minister is likely to resign.
  • They expect him to announce his resignation this week.
  • They think that there are two possible candidates for his job.
In newspapers, reports and other more formal writing, this idea is often expressed with a structure based on a passive reporting verb. This has the effect of distancing the information. In this post we look at three such structures:
  • It is said that the minister is likely to resign.
  • He is expected to announce his resignation this week.
  • There are thought to be two possible candidates for his job.
To do these exercises you need to know the basics of making passive structures. If you need reminding, you could look at my post - Introduction to the passive