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English Grammar Guide

Learning Roadmap

Welcome to the roadmap. This shows you the full journey from beginner grammar to advanced precision. You don’t need to start at A1 — jump in wherever you feel shaky.

A1 Foundations

Section titled “ Foundations”

The building blocks. If you can already form basic sentences, you probably know most of this — but it’s worth a quick scan.

  • Basic sentence structure (Subject + Verb + Object)
  • Nouns and pronouns
  • Present simple (I eat, she eats)
  • Past simple (I ate, she ate)
  • Basic questions and negatives
Start A1 →The basics — sentence structure, nouns, and your first two tenses.

A2 Expansion

Section titled “ Expansion”

The stuff that trips up Mandarin speakers the most. Articles, prepositions, and the tenses that don’t exist in 中文.

  • Articles (a / an / the) — the #1 error for Mandarin speakers 🏆
  • Prepositions of place — because 在 ≠ in ≠ on ≠ at
  • Present continuous (I am eating)
  • Present perfect (I have eaten)
  • Countable vs. uncountable nouns
  • Basic modals (can, must, should)
Start A2 →Articles, prepositions, and the tenses Mandarin speakers skip.

B1 Systems

Section titled “ Systems”

See the big picture. Instead of learning tenses one by one, see how the whole 12-tense system fits together.

  • The tense system — all 12 tenses as a 3×4 grid
  • Relative clauses (the man who…)
  • Passive voice (it was built)
  • Conditionals (zero + first)
  • Subject-verb agreement
  • Reported speech basics
Start B1 →The full tense system, relative clauses, and passive voice.

B2 Choices

Section titled “ Choices”

When there’s more than one correct answer — and which one sounds natural. This is where you go from “correct” to “fluent.”

  • Mixed conditionals
  • Inversion (Never have I seen…)
  • Advanced passive constructions
  • Wish + regret structures
  • Cleft sentences (It was John who…)
Start B2 →The difference between correct English and natural English.

C1 Precision

Section titled “ Precision”

The fine details. Collocations, register, and the grammar that separates “pretty good” from “wait, are you a native speaker?”

  • Advanced modals (needn’t have, could have been)
  • Collocations and natural pairings
  • Register and formality shifts
  • Ellipsis and substitution
  • Advanced noun phrases
Start C1 →Collocations, register, and the precision that makes you sound native.

🇨🇳 Mandarin Speaker Fast Track

Section titled “🇨🇳 Mandarin Speaker Fast Track”

Don’t want to follow the full curriculum? Here are the top 10 grammar traps for Mandarin speakers, ranked by how often they cause errors:

  1. Articles (a/an/the) — ~28% of all grammar errors
  2. Verb tenses — especially present perfect
  3. Prepositions — 在 doing too much work
  4. Plural -s — your brain says it’s optional. It’s not.
  5. Subject-verb agreement — he like → he likes
  6. Countable vs. uncountable — “an advice” is not a thing
  7. Word order — “I very like” → “I really like”
  8. Relative clauses — you avoid these, and that’s the problem
  9. Passive voice — “was happened” is wrong, but you’ll want to say it
  10. Pronunciation-linked grammar — if you can’t hear the -s, you won’t write it
Go to Mandarin Speaker Guide →Deep dives into each trap with Mandarin/English contrast.