INVERSION - a simple guide! Advanced English grammar - C1 Advanced and C2 Proficiency Cambridge exam

hello and welcome to to the point english with me ben thank you for joining me again and welcome to any new viewers and in this video i'm going to be telling you all about inversion yeah i know it's not the most exciting or fun or glamorous area of english learning but if you're planning on taking a cambridge english exam in particular the c1 advanced or c2 proficiency it's essential that you know all about inversion because it's highly likely that you could come across inversion particularly in part four of the reading and use of english maybe in part two and it's a good idea to use some inversion structures in your writing compositions and even in your speaking the examiners love to see that but even if you're not planning on taking an english exam it's good to know about inversion in fact it's a lot more common than you think and i'm going to explain why in a moment but first of all those of you who saw my last video will know that we've just moved to asturias in the north of spain um so this is all new the house is new so i'm not really sure where i'm going to be making videos in the future but this this little corner will do for now but if you prefer me to make more videos outside with the beautiful scenery that we have then let me know in the comments your wish is my command unless it's raining okay inversion the first thing i should say about inversion is that you you use it more often than you think now what is inversion first of all well to invert something inversion comes from the verb to invert is either to turn turn it upside down to turn something upside down or to change the order of something now when we're talking about english grammar inversion is all about changing the order of words in particular the subject and the verb so if that sounds familiar to you then you're probably thinking about question forms right and that's the most common use of inversion in english so a very simple example is you are spanish okay that's just a normal affirmative sentence the question is are you spanish so the subject and the verb change place in the sentence they change the order that's inversion it's that simple and of course it's very common with questions okay so as as you can see you use inversion a lot it's very basic in this context so people often get quite intimidated they find the prospect of studying inversion quite daunting and that's understandable because as we'll see in a moment some of the more advanced structures using inversion are quite complicated but another very common use of inversion is in conditional sentences so for example a typical conditional sentence is if i had known you were coming i would have baked a cake so that's the third conditional right so we're referring to a past action that didn't happen so if i had known you were coming i'd have baked a cake we can also say using inversion had i known you were coming i'd have baked a cake that's the same that part but had i known not if i had known but had i known you were coming and that's quite a common way of using conditionals in english it's a more advanced form of conditionals but again in the c1 advanced or c2 proficiency exams you need to know how to to to make that construction we can also use inversion with the first conditional in a slightly different way so let's think of an example for the first conditional if i go to london i will buy you a souvenir now another way of saying that a more advanced structure of conditional there is should i go to london i'll buy you a souvenir so should i go to london i'll buy you a souvenir so here you have the inversion the should the modal auxiliary should goes before the subject eye so we're getting into quite advanced grammar now but as i said it's quite common so in question forms and those conditional forms those are probably the most common uses of inversion in english but a very important use that we need to look at too is when we use adverbs particularly negative adverbs in sentences to add emphasis to a sentence and we often use these forms in a more literary sense so often in written english more than spoken english it can be used in spoken english too but in more in normal colloquial english you don't hear it so often i for example hardly ever use inversion in this way but as i said it you need to know it for your writing and to understand it in your reading especially if you're taking a cambridge english exam as i know many of you are so let's look at some of the more common uses of inversion in this context in this use with negative adverbs or negative adverb phrases so probably the most common use is not only but also and you really need to know this structure you should be using it in your writing compositions the more formal writing compositions so let's look at an example sentence not only does the government need to reduce carbon emissions but also encourage people to recycle more okay so again it's my favorite example of climate change and carbon emissions recycling as it's very common in the exams as you know so not only does the government need so there's the example of the inversion does the government need rather than the government needs to reduce carbon emissions but also encourage people to recycle more so the normal sentence there would be very plainly and quite boring the government needs to reduce carbon emissions and encourage people to recycle more which is a perfectly good grammatically correct sentence but to add emphasis to put more feeling into the sentence we can use that inversion structure let's look at another example of inversion now with only only then so a continuation of my last example but only then will we see improvements so only then will we see improvements so here the inversion is will we see which is again it's like a question form isn't it will we see you will we see improvements but here it's not a question it's it's a statement but adding emphasis with only then so again the normal structure a normal bland sentence would be we will only see improvements then which again is perfectly good it's a good grammatically correct sentence but it doesn't have the same feeling or emphasis so another negative adverb that we use a lot in inversions is seldom which is really a synonym in this context of hardly scarcely and rarely so you can use those those adverbs in a similar way so for example seldom have we seen such incompetence seldom have we seen such incompetence and you could also say rarely have we seen such incompetence or scarcely have we seen such incompetence or hardly ever have we seen such incompetence so all basically the same meaning and the normal sentence would be we have seldom seen such incompetence again perfectly good but not the same emphasis at the end of this video i'm going to give you a list of negative adverbs that we can use with inversion because there are many but i'm focusing on the more common ones in this video at the moment with the examples because if you learn all of them it will just get confusing so i think it's better to focus on the the more common ones but it's also good to know about the others so as i said you'll have a list at the end of the video now in all of the examples i've just given you the example of inversion comes in the first part of the sentence but the inversion can also come in the second part of the sentence so really you're inverting two parts of the sentence it will be clear with my examples so not since my school days have i studied so hard not since my school days have i studied so hard so have i studied that's the inversion the normal sentence would be i haven't studied so hard since my school days which is quite a neutral sentence without any real emphasis just one more example now so imagine a teacher who is keeping their pupils in the class and the bell has gone for the end of school but the students haven't finished what they're doing so the teacher says not until you finish the exercise can you go home okay so again the inversion is can you go home again it's like a question form right can you go home but it's not a question it's not until you finish the exercise can you go home so again the normal sentence would be you can't go home until you finish the exercise so you cannot go home until you finish the exercise and there you have it inversion wasn't that complicated was it of course you'd need to practice and write your own sentences to to really get to know the structure but it's not as intimidating or complicated as as many people think i believe i hope that helped you anyway um make sure you hit the like and subscribe button if you liked this video and you want to see some more because i will be making many more thank you for joining me again and i'll see you very soon for another one take [Music] you

Channel: To The Point English with Ben.

Views: 3,049

Keywords: English lesson, English class grammar, advanced English grammar inversion, cae exam tips, cambridge exams, advanced english grammar, how to use inversion, inversion for cae exam, inversion for c1 advanced exam, inversion for c1 advance cambridge english exam, inversion for c1 advanced cambridge exam, cae grammar, cpe grammar, c1 advanced grammar, c2 proficiency grammar, essential grammar c1 advanced, how to pass the c1 advanced exam, how to pass the c2 proficiency exam

Id: Y5Mv87X-Uz8

Length: 9min 55sec (595 seconds)

Published: Sun Oct 03 2021