INVERSION Advanced English Grammar Learn how to INVERT your sentences and the CONDITIONALS

In today’s lesson, we are going to look at inversion. I’ve gotten lot of requests for this topic. This is an advanced grammar lesson, but I’m going to go through everything step by step. First: What does inversion mean? That’s really important. Two: Inversion with adverbials. And: Inversion with conditionals. Get ready to take notes, and at the end of this lesson, leave me an example in the comments down below. My name is Arnel. Let’s start. First things first: what does "inversion" mean? If you want to understand today’s grammar, you need to understand its name. Let’s start with an image. Here is my blog. This looks pretty standard, right? Well, let’s invert the colors. Okay—now you can see we have white letters on black screen instead of the standard black letters on white screen. If we invert something, we change its normal order—just like my blog here. Invert is the verb. Inversion is the noun. Today’s lesson is about the inversion of word order. Normally, sentences look like this: am tall." → Subject + verb "We bought new car." → Subject + verb Or we can look at more complex sentence: "Oscar was eager to impress soccer coach because he wanted to be the star striker for his team." → Subject + verb, subject + verb. It’s clear: you need your subject before your verb. But when can you have verb before subject? Any questions, right? "Are you tall?" "Did you buy new car?" "Was Oscar eager to impress his coach?" We can see the verb comes before the subject. Sometimes you need an auxiliary verb with your main verb. But there are situations where you can invert the subject and the verb when it’s not question. This is where the grammar becomes little bit more advanced. If you want to invert sentence (not question), you need to start with an adverbial. What’s an adverbial? Let’s take look at list made for you. Here we go. An adverbial can be: single adverb like rarely or seldom Or mini group like only then have divided these adverbials into seven main groups. know this looks like lot of information, but these are all very similar. One: All of these begin an inverted sentence. Two: All of these need the same grammatical structure. Group number seven is bit of an exception—but this isn’t English without exceptions. And lastly: These are all negative adverbials—you can see no, you can see not, or other adverbials that give you that negative or restrictive feeling. Yep—we’re going to look at each group one at time. Group Number One: "rarely" You know what rarely means. have." "Never." "Always." "Sometimes." Rarely is about there. "Rarely do see people reading newspapers." Let’s look at that structure: Adverbial + auxiliary verb + subject + main verb You can see my inversion there. So when we invert sentences, you need to remember three things: Your adverbial → check The grammatical structure → check And think about the tense you want to use Here I’m using present simple tense → check. Is it possible to say: rarely see people reading newspapers." Can just use the standard word order? Of course you can. So what’s the difference? An inversion is used to make our sentences more emphatic. This means we want the listener and reader to really feel our emotions—because we think something is interesting, surprising, or shocking. Think about it like this: standard sentence is like period. And inversion is like an exclamation point—it’s youthful way to show emotion. "Look out!" → Here the exclamation point works. "Excuse me, what time is it? 9:45." → Hmm—see, here it doesn’t work. Inversion works in similar way—you only need it to emphasize what you are saying or writing. So in my second sentence: this is just regular observation. In my first sentence: I’m really emphasizing this—because in my conversation or in the text, it’s important. I’ll go into more detail about why we use inversion later on. Instead of rarely, can use seldom: "Seldom do see people reading newspapers." seldom see people reading newspapers." → Yes. Many times, your adverbial can begin an inverted sentence and be part of standard sentence—but in today’s lesson, we’re just looking at those inverted structures. Group Number Two: "at no time" This means not one single time—never. "My best friend Jessica and went on road trip. We used my car, and did all of the driving." "At no time did she offer to pay for gas." I’m little bit angry—I need that inversion. Adverbial + auxiliary verb + subject + main verb choose past simple—I’m thinking about my tense because I’m talking about past story. can also use not once: "Not once did she offer to pay for gas." Okay—we’ve already looked at four adverbials: Rarely Seldom At no time Not once These are called negative adverbials—but the situation doesn’t have to be negative. For example: "Not once have had an issue with one of my neighbors." That’s positive thing, right? Group Three: Group three is little bit special—you need to remember two parts: No sooner… than Hardly… when Scarcely… when Barely… when These adverbials mean: one action happens, and another action happens immediately after it. "No sooner had left my house than it started to rain." Normally, when we use the adverbials in group three, we use combination of the past perfect tense and past simple. "Hardly had the students started their exam when the fire alarm went off." "Scarcely had the villagers fled when the invaders arrived." → Good timing. "Barely had we pitched our tent when gust of wind blew it over." Group Number Four: We’re really getting through these. On no account → one must never do this—it doesn’t matter what the situation is. "On no account must you show anyone this letter." → Never do this. told Jerry that on no account will speak to Sandra." → will never speak to her. You can also say under no circumstances: "Under no circumstances must you show anyone this letter." told Jerry that under no circumstances will talk to Sandra." And you can see in my second example: my adverbial doesn’t begin the sentence, but it does begin new clause—that’s okay. Group Number Five: Well—this isn’t really group. This is just one—but let’s call it group number five: Not only… but think lot of you might already know this one because it’s really common. This means in addition to: "Not only does Mara speak English and Italian, but she’s also learning Arabic." → Group Number Six: "Students must not skip modules—they need to complete each module." "Only then will the next module be unlocked." → Only at that time. Hmm—double auxiliary verb: will be unlocked. This is future simple passive—the passive voice. always thought my ex-colleague Kara was nice person. She was always helping me with my work and even completed lot of tasks for me." "Only later did find out that she was, in fact, stealing lot of my ideas and data." "Lemons are usually associated as being summer fruit, but only in winter do most lemon trees bear fruit." Bear is an alternative way of saying produce. Okay—I hope you’re starting to get good feeling about inversion. also hope you’re not watching my lesson like this. know grammar is not the most interesting topic in the world, but we need to keep going—there’s lot more to cover. It’s important to remember that not all adverbials begin an inverted sentence. You know "only then", "only later", "only in"—those work. But if begin sentence with just "only", it doesn’t work: "Only my mom can make chocolate chip cookies the way like them." Here, can’t invert this sentence. So the adverbials you need are very specific to the list in today’s lesson. Let’s move on to the test—and haven’t forgotten about group number seven. We’ll do the exceptions later. It’s time. have standard sentence: couldn’t find public bathroom anywhere." How can you change this into an inverted sentence using the adverbial give you? You need to: Use the adverbial Think of that grammatical structure And think of the tense you need The tense is easy—you just copy the tense that’s in the standard sentence. So we form: "Nowhere could find public bathroom." don’t need to repeat "anywhere" because already have "nowhere"—and don’t want double negative. So wouldn’t say: "Nowhere couldn’t find public bathroom." → No. Your turn—and will say number six might be little bit confusing, but give it try. Pause the video to do this. Okay—here are the answers. Take look. Number six: You can see in number six there are two auxiliary verbs. Why? Because I’m using the present perfect continuous tense. If that happens, you need to put your subject between the two auxiliary verbs. Group Number Seven: Last one—exceptions want you to pause this video and take look. Why are these considered exceptions? Right—you can see we have my adverbial, but here after these adverbials, we have the standard word order: subject then verb. The inversion happens later on. You need to remember that for this little group here. How can you remember that? Practice—write some of your own example sentences. Leave me comment down below. Let’s continue with exceptions. Here have the questions from the start of this lesson: "Are you tall?" "Did you buy new car?" "Was Oscar eager to impress his coach?" You can see that only in sentence two is there an auxiliary verb. Why? Because "be" is your main verb—it’s the only verb you need. "Never was it so cold." "Be" is my main verb—I don’t need that standard inverted structure with the auxiliary verb + subject + main verb. And remember—about 20 seconds ago, said: "You can see that only in sentence two is there an auxiliary verb. 'Be' is the only verb—it’s my main verb. don’t need that auxiliary." And remember—at the start of this lesson, said: "I’ll go into more detail about why we use inversion later on." Right—so we already know inverted sentences are more emphatic—but they are also usually more formal. Many times, you will only see inversion in literary contexts—it can sound very… hmm… poetic. want to show you what mean. Here is mini clip from one of the Lord of the Rings movies. In it, you will see three examples of inversion. You don’t need to understand everything that’s happening in the scene—I just want to show you the feeling inversion can give. Let’s take look. "Late is the hour in which this conjurer chooses to appear." → Sentence one—and conjurer is like wizard. Let’s skip ahead. Let’s keep going. Example two. Let’s keep going. Very formal. Very poetic. In this mini clip, there are three inverted sentences. Does that sound natural to you? No. My whole point is: you don’t want to start overusing inversion to make your speaking and writing more advanced. Again—inversion is like the exclamation point: When you need it, you need it. But if you use it too often or when you use it when it’s not necessary, it can sound out of place. Last thing for today: inversion with conditionals We are going to look at the first, second, and third conditional. If you are not familiar with conditionals, you can always watch my video lesson on this topic. So in today’s lesson, I’m only going to focus on how and why we invert conditionals—I’m not going to explain the conditionals themselves. Let’s begin with the first conditional: "If you choose to accept the job position, you will need to move to New York." "If you don’t pay by the ninth, you will lose your reservation." If you want to invert the first conditional, start with "should": Should + subject + bare infinitive "Should you choose to accept the job position, you will need to move to New York." "Should you not pay by the ninth, you will lose your reservation." Why do we do this? Again—inversion is usually more formal—so here we’re being more formal. am slightly more polite. Notice in my second sentence the negative: separate "should" and "not". You need to do that—you can’t put them together: "Shouldn’t you pay by the ninth…" → No. Second conditional: "If had better vision, wouldn’t need to wear glasses." "If you didn’t spend so much money on shoes, you would have more savings." We begin with "were": Were + subject + infinitive + to "Were to have better vision, wouldn’t need glasses." What? "Were were"? Is that correct? Yeah—it’s an odd exception in English. With the second conditional, you can use "were" with any subject. "Were you not to spend so much money on shoes, you would have more savings." Again—we’re not separated. "If were foot taller, would be able to join my school’s basketball team." "Were foot taller, would be able to join my school’s basketball team." "Be" is my main verb—it’s the only verb need. Third conditional: "If had known about Paul’s serious medical condition, wouldn’t have complained about my little cold." "If hadn’t brought power bank with me, my phone would have died." Conditional number three is… um… pretty simple. You just replace "if" with "had": "Had known about Paul’s serious medical condition…" "Had not brought power bank with me…" That is everything. Yes—there are other structures we can invert, but now you know how to spot them and why they’re used. Give me an example sentence down below. Check out my blog, and can’t wait to make another lesson for you. hope this one helped you. See you next time.