Intermediate Grammar
At B1 you handle a wider range of tenses and structures: the present perfect, first conditional, comparatives, and reported speech. This chapter reviews the grammar that lets you talk about experience, plans and possibilities.
Present Perfect vs Past Simple
Use the present perfect ('have/has + past participle') for past actions with a link to now, or with 'ever', 'never', 'just', 'yet' and 'already': 'I have just finished.' Use the past simple with finished time expressions like 'yesterday' or 'in 2019'.
Conditionals and Modals
The first conditional ('If it rains, we will stay in') talks about likely future situations. Modal verbs such as 'should', 'must' and 'might' express advice, obligation and possibility.
Comparatives and Superlatives
Short adjectives add -er/-est ('faster', 'the fastest'); longer ones use 'more/most' ('more interesting'). Use 'than' after a comparative and 'the' before a superlative.