English grammar

 ENGLISH GRAMMAR

Hello, I wanna share with you some grammar topics such as: Modal verbs, Subjunctive mood and verbs + prepositions.

Let's start with modal verbs.

Modals are different from normal verbs:

1: They don't use an 's' for the third person singular.
2: They make questions by inversion ('she can go' becomes 'can she go?').
3: They are followed directly by the infinitive of another verb (without 'to').

What can be modal verb and what does it express? Look at the picture.

But there are past modal forms. These past modal verbs are all used hypothetically, to talk about things that didn't really happen in the past.

1: Could have + past participle means that something was possible in the past, or you had the ability to do something in the past, but that you didn't do it.

Example:

• I could have stayed up late, but I decided to go to bed early.
• He could have studied harder, but he was too lazy and that's why he failed the exam.

Couldn't have + past participle means that something wasn't possible in the past, even if you had wanted to do it.

Example:

• I couldn't have arrived any earlier. There was a terrible traffic jam (= it was impossible for me to have arrived any earlier).

2: We use could/might have + past participle when we want to make a guess about something that happened in the past.  In this case, we don't know if what we're saying is true or not true. We're just talking about our opinion of what maybe happened.

Example:

Why is John late?

• He could have got stuck in traffic.
• He could have forgotten that we were meeting today.

We can also use would have + past participle to talk about something you wanted to do but didn't. This is very similar to the third conditional, but we don't need an 'if clause'.

• I would have gone to the party, but I was really busy.
  (= I wanted to go to the party, but I didn't because I was busy. If I hadn't been so busy, I would have gone to the party.)

    Watch the video to fix the material!

Links for practice:

1.https://www.ecenglish.com/learnenglish/lessons/modal-verb-have-past-participle

2.https://www.esl-lounge.com/student/grammar/4g66-past-modals-exercise.php

3.https://www.perfect-english-grammar.com/could-have-should-have-would-have-exercise-1.html

4.https://www.ecenglish.com/learnenglish/lessons/modal-verbs-practice

5.https://www.englishpage.com/modals/interactivemodal7.htm

6.https://continuingstudies.uvic.ca/elc/studyzone//410/grammar/410-modals-of-possibility-and-probability-for-past-situations1

7.https://www.english-grammar.at/online_exercises/modal-verbs/m008.htm

8.https://www.eltbase.com/quiz/200_01.htm

9.https://www.learn-english-today.com/lessons/lesson_contents/exercises/should-ought-need_quiz1.html

10.https://www.eltbase.com/quiz/078_02.htm