English Grammar: A2 Foundations

About this course

A course in the grammar that carries most of everyday English, pitched at CEFR level A2 and built around the mistakes learners actually make rather than a list of rules. It starts with the two present tenses, because using the wrong one is the single most common error at this level, and English draws a line between a habit and something happening right now that many languages do not. Then the two past tenses, the irregular verbs you cannot avoid, and the double-past mistake that appears in almost every learner's writing. The middle section covers articles, which is the area that marks non-native English longest if your first language has none, and countable versus uncountable nouns, including the two dozen words that are countable in most languages and not in English. It finishes with word order, prepositions of time and place, comparison, and a checklist of the ten errors that turn up most often whatever your first language. Every section has a quiz, and there is a 25-question exam at the end. Read the first lesson before anything else. It says exactly what the certificate at the end means, and what it does not.

What you will learn

• Choose correctly between the present simple and present continuous
• Use the past simple and past continuous, including the common irregular verbs
• Decide when to use a, an, the, or no article at all
• Handle uncountable nouns and quantity words like much, many, a few and a little
• Order words, adjectives and prepositions the way English actually does
• Compare things with -er, more, as ... as and the irregular forms

Before you begin

• A quiet half hour at a time, more than any particular starting knowledge
• Everything is text, so no microphone, headphones, or audio needed
• No prior qualification, and no external test booking required