You’ve reached the holy grail of English—Advanced level! It’s like the ultimate key to endless possibilities. You can totally chat it up with native speakers in any situation, rock your career, or even study abroad without breaking a sweat. Wanna know what it takes to get there? Keep reading.
Do you want to find out if your knowledge matches up to the Advanced level? Take our test and get useful recommendations.
What can you do at level C1?
✅ Watch movies, series, and Ted Talks without those pesky subtitles.
✅ Listen to any podcasts.
✅ Tackle complex and extensive texts by catching the context.
✅ Nailing conversations on topics you never even knew existed.
✅ Talk like a pro’ about social, scientific stuff, and all things professional.
✅ Write accurate, well-structured, and detailed texts on tough topics, showing off your mad text formation skills.
What grammar topic should you master at the C1 level?
Inversion
Flip-floppin’ the subject and the predicate, that’s what inversion’s all about. English word order is pretty rigid, so usually, the subject comes first and then the predicate. But with inversion, it’s all switched up—the action comes first, then the who or what does the action.
Inversion adds some spice and flair to your statements, making them all emotional and vivid. You might not use it all that much in regular talk, but it can give you extra points on essays and exams.
Mixed conditional sentences
At the Intermediate level, you probably have learned the Zero, First, Second and Third Conditionals. But now at Advanced, you’ll learn how to mix ’em up and create sentences with a past condition and a present or future result, or the other way around.
There are two types of mixing:
Type 1: Present results of a past action
In this case, you imagine a change in a past situation and the different result of that change in the present or future.
So the structure is: If + past perfect, would + infinitive.
Type 2: Past result of present condition
Here’s a sentence imagining how a different situation right now (unreal present condition) would’ve totally meant the past was different too.
And the structure is: If + past simple, would have + past participle.
Spoken grammar
At the Advanced level, you can confidently dive into conversational English, especially how native speakers totally toss aside grammar rules when they’re just chillin’ and talking casually. The best example of this is ellipsis, where they skip parts of a sentence, like questions without those auxiliary verbs, or sentences without subjects or articles. Crazy, right? But remember, this is only cool when you’re talking with friends, not when you’re dealing with partners or business clients.
Do you want some coffee -> Want some coffee? -> Wanna coffee?
Are you ready yet? -> Ready yet?
Cleft sentences
They’re all about giving some extra emphasis to what you’re saying and making sentences more expressive. You know, like, connecting stuff that’s already obvious with something new for the listener. Check this out:
I really like chocolate.
Cleft sentence: What I really like is chocolate.
The second sentence splits one idea into two sentences. This allows for added emotional emphasis.
Sentences with “it” are super common. It’s all about what comes after “it” – that’s the big deal, the most important information. And in spoken language, they often drop the “that” part.
A: Sharon’s car got broken into yesterday, didn’t it?
B: No. It was Nina’s car that got broken into!
Substitution
It’s a neat trick to keep things fresh in both spoken and written language. Instead of saying the same word over and over, just use “one” for singular stuff or “ones” for plural things. Easy peasy!
Instead of uncountable nouns, use “some” in affirmative sentences or “any” in negative sentences and questions:
A: Have either of you got any quarters for the laundry?
B: Let me see, I definitely have some.
C: I’m afraid, I don’t have any.
Long phrases with repeated verbs can be replaced with corresponding auxiliary verbs:
A: I always have toast and coffee in the morning.
B: I do too. I can’t function with a brekkie.
Reaching the Advanced level in English opens up a whole new world of possibilities for you. Keep practicing, stay curious, and remember, the sky’s the limit in your language journey!
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