Essential English Collocations, Definitions, and Grammar
Collocations and Definitions
- Estimate: how many/cost/value
- Financial: difficulty/problems/crisis
- Specifications: build to/fulfil/surplus to
- Policy: foreign/economic/public
- Concept: an idea or principle
- Derive: to come from something
- Establish: to start something such as a company
- Estimate: to guess something such as a value
- Financials: relating to money
- Interpretation: an opinion or explanation
- Policy: an official plan/idea for a particular agreement
- Procedure: actions that are an accepted way of doing things
- Require: to need
- Specific: related to one particular thing
Common Word Pairings
- Affect: adversely/deeply
- Consequences: dire/disastrous/face the
- Impact: major/significant/environmental
- Aspect: key/business/positive
- Affect: to have an influence
- Aspect: one part of a situation
- Consequences: the result of an action
- Evaluation: a judgement of the value or importance
- Impact: a powerful effect that something/someone has
- Maintenance: something that continues to exist
- Obtain: to get something
- Participation: take part
- Perceive: come to an opinion about something
- Relevant: connected with what is discussed
- Constrain: financial/environmental/political
- Illustrate: that/how
- Outcome: desirable/satisfactory/likely
- Component: basic/essential/individual
- Sufficient: far from/barely/hardly
- Component: part which combines with other parts
- Constraint: something which controls something
- Deduction: when a decision is reached based on known facts
- Illustrate: to show something, the meaning using examples
- Implies: to state an idea without saying it directly
Conditional Clauses
- provided –> as long as = if mid
- once = when beg
- unless –> if not beg
- Implies: to state an idea without saying it directly
- Justification: good explanation/reason for something
- Outcome: result of an action
- Proportion: amount or number when compared with the whole
- Sufficient: enough
- Validity: deemed accepted based on truth
Determiners and Quantifiers
- Use a singular verb
- Any of/none of/the majority of/all (of), some of + uncountable
- One of + plural noun/pronoun
- The number of + plural noun
- Every, each + singular noun or coordinated noun
- Everyone, everybody, everything
- Measurement, amount of quantity
- Singular verb – plural in less formal
- Any of/each of/either of/neither of/none of + plural noun/pronoun
Use a Plural Verb
- a/the majority of/a number of/all of/some of + plural noun/pronoun
- Verb agrees with the noun closest to the verb
- Complex subject: the first noun is a %/fraction/proportion
Descriptive Adjectives
- Bustling: full of activity and noise
- Dark & dingy: dark and depressing
- Drab: grey and depressing
- Draughty: air continually enters
- Dreary: boring and depressing
- Gloomy: dark and depressing
- Godforsaken: horrible, boring, depressing
- Musty: old and damp-smelling
- Picturesque: very pretty
- Plush: very comfortable, expensive, decorated
- Pokey: uncomfortable, small
- Remote: far away from other towns
- Seedy: dirty and unsteady
- Sleepy: quiet place where very little happens
- Spacious: very large
- Stuffy: lacking fresh air
- Touristy: attracts tourists
- Unspoiled: not lost its local character
– before a noun – after — before or after
Conjunctions
Although and though
Though less formal can also be used as an adverb
+as Special emphasis: be/appear/become/look/seem/sound/prove
begMuch as – before a noun – how we feel
Even though – despite the fact that & even if – whether or not
In spite of + ing – although – also followed by a noun (no ing)
Despite and spite never followed by a finite verb
Conditional Sentences
Real condition
present/future = present tenses no will
Past = past tenses
Unreal
present/future = past simple/continuous
If clause + would + bare infinitive