Skip to content
EveryLingua

 ·  24 lists  ·  1303 words

The groundwork

The words no sentence can stand without.

What holds these lists together

These lists belong to no particular area, which means they belong to all of them. A pronoun, an article, a number, a question word, the commonest verbs and the connectives that hold a paragraph together turn up in every sentence you will later build about a flat, the weather or a job. Two English habits go wrong here first. English leaves out the article in a general statement and French does not: «I like coffee» is j’aime le café. And where English counts time with a perfect, French stays in the present: «I have lived here for two years» is j’habite ici depuis deux ans. Start here and every other list has something to attach to.

The 24 lists

B2Structuring a textLinking, conceding, concluding.50 wordsB2Arguing and objectingConceding, qualifying, refuting.50 wordsB2Precise adjectivesAdjectives that grade evidence rather than taste.50 wordsA2Words for anythingThe connectors that hold a paragraph together.50 wordsA2How something isThe adjectives that describe a thing rather than a person.50 wordsA2Doing somethingThe verbs for what the hands do.50 wordsA2Words for thinkingThe abstract nouns that any explanation needs.50 wordsA1Greetings and politenessWhat you say before you can say anything else.40 wordsA1People, articles, question wordsThe small words that hold every sentence together.40 wordsA1Numbers and timeCounting, the days of the week, the months and the hours.69 wordsA1The most important verbsThe fifty-odd verbs that carry almost every sentence.57 wordsA1Words for everythingThe small words that appear in every third sentence.82 wordsB1Words without a topic IIIWhat you need in order to talk about reasons, consequences and conditions.148 wordsB1Measures, quantities, changeRising, falling, holding steady.44 wordsB2Words without a topic IVThe words for claiming something cautiously and qualifying it precisely.90 wordsB2Verbs of movementWalking, throwing, pulling, turning — a different word for each manner of doing it.50 wordsB2Describing trendsWhat a line does, and how strongly it does it.44 wordsB2Texture and conditionSturdy, brittle, worn in, made to measure — describing things precisely.52 wordsC1Words with no subject VThe negatives and the derivatives that belong to no field at all.30 wordsC2Degrees and gradationsHow strongly something is meant — from barely to completely.41 wordsC2Projects and how they runStarting, keeping going, stopping, and the words that say how something ended.33 wordsC2Cause and effectHow a text ties two things together, and how tightly.48 wordsC2Time relationsBefore, meanwhile, since then — and how long things last.40 wordsC2One verb instead of a clauseForty-five verbs that say in a word what otherwise takes a sentence.45 words

Spread across the levels

The category runs across the levels — it is an area, not a difficulty. If you practise it, you can also choose a level at the top of the practice page and then get only the part that sits there.

LevelWordsShare
A124919 %
A224118 %
B118214 %
B239430 %
C1302 %
C220716 %

Practise this category

Multiple choice and gaps, across all 24 lists and all 1303 words. Whatever you get wrong comes back tomorrow.