Essential English Vocabulary, Grammar, and Idioms

Understanding Personality Traits

• Sympathetic: Always listens to problems and understands.
• Charming: Good at making people feel good.
• Witty: Thinks quickly of something funny to say.
• Careless: Does things too quickly and makes mistakes.
• Intellectual: Possessing a high level of intelligence and knowledge.
• Pushy: Tries to force others to do what they want.
• Shallow: Doesn't care about anything serious or important.
• Pretentious: Tries to appear more important or knowledgeable than they are.
• Smug: Excessively pleased with oneself.
• Bubbly: Always happy and energetic.
• Cheeky: Shows a lack of respect in a playful or amusing way.
• Hypocritical: Gives advice but doesn't follow it themselves.
• Scatty: Forgetting and losing things frequently.

Mastering Verb Patterns

Verbs Followed by Gerunds or Infinitives

• Verbs + Gerund/Infinitive: like, love, hate, prefer, begin, start

Verbs Followed by Gerunds

• Verbs + Gerund: enjoy, detest, don't mind, imagine, feel like, suggest, practice, miss, can't stand

Verbs Followed by Infinitives

• Verbs + Infinitive: hope, refuse, promise, ask, learn, expect, decide, afford, offer, choose, want

Reported Speech: Tense Changes

• Present Simple → Past Simple
• Present Continuous → Past Continuous
• Present Perfect → Past Perfect
• Past Simple → Past Perfect (or remains Past Simple)
• Can/Can't → Could/Couldn't
• Will/Won't → Would/Wouldn't
• Must → Had to

Common Reporting Verb Structures

• Say, Claim, State, Emphasize, Warn someone: THAT...
• Recommend, Suggest: THAT YOU DO...
• Suggest, Recommend, Deny: DOING...
• Advise, Convince, Encourage someone: (NOT) TO DO...
• Promise (not), Refuse: TO DO...

Essential Idioms and Expressions

Brain Idioms

• Brainstorm: To think of as many ideas as you can.
• Pick someone's brain: To get ideas or information from someone.
• Brainwave: A brilliant idea.
• Brainchild: An original idea or invention.
• The brain: The most intelligent person in a group.
• Have got something on the brain: To always think about the same thing.

Mind Idioms

• Make up my mind: To decide.
• Change my mind: To make a new decision.
• Be in two minds: To find it hard to decide.
• Be out of my mind: To be crazy.
• Have got something in my mind: To be worried about something.
• Keep something in mind: To try not to forget something.
• Speak my mind: To say exactly what you think.
• Read his mind: To try to know what someone else is thinking.
• Take my mind off something: To stop thinking about a problem or worry.
• Slip my mind: To forget something.

Time Expressions

• Running out of time
• Has time to
• Take your time
• Give him a hard time
• Just in time
• On time
• Wasted a lot of time
• Take time off
• Spends a lot of time

Effort and Difficulty Expressions

• Struggling: Finding something very difficult.
• Half-heartedly: Without enthusiasm or interest.
• Go to great lengths: To make a great effort to do something.
• Find it easy: To do something without effort.
• Get a lot out of it: To find all your efforts rewarding.
• Do it properly: To do something the right way.
• Doing something wrong: Making mistakes.