in today's lesson we are going to look at inversion I've gotten a 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 a black screen instead of the standard black letters on a 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 I am tall subject verb we bought a new car subject verb or we can look at a more complex sentence Oscar was eager
to impress a 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 when can you have a verb before a subject any questions right are you tall did you buy a 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 a question this is where the
grammar becomes a little bit more advanced if you want to invert a sentence not a question you need to start with an adverbial what's an adverbial let's take a look at a list I made for you here we go an adverbial can be a single adverb like rarely or seldom or a mini group like only then I have divided these adverbials into seven many groups I know this looks like a lot of information but these are all very similar one all of these begin an inverted sentence all of these need the same grammatical structure group
number seven is a 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 a time group number one rarely you know what rarely means I have never always sometimes rarely is about there rarely do I 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 you're 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 I rarely see people reading newspapers can I 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 about it like this and inversion is like an exclamation point it's a
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 a similar way you only need it to emphasize what you are saying or writing so in my second sentence this is just a 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 I can use seldom seldom do I see people reading newspapers I
seldom see people reading newspapers yes many times your adverbial can begin an inverted sentence and be part of a 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 I went on a road trip we used my car and I did all of the driving at no time did she offer to pay for gas I'm a little bit angry I need that inversion adverbial auxiliary verb subject main verb I choose a past simple I'm thinking
about my tense because I'm talking about a past story I can also use not once the ones that you offer to pay for gas okay we've already looked at four adverbials rarely sell them at no time not once these are called negative adverbials but the situation doesn't have to be negative for example not once have I had an issue with one of my neighbors that's a positive thing right group three group three is a 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 I left my house then it started to rain normally when we use um the adverbials in group three we use a combination of the past perfect tense and past simple hardly had the students start 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 a 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 I told Jerry that on no account will I speak to Sandra I will never speak to her you can also say under no circumstances under no circumstances must you show anyone this letter I told Jerry that under no circumstances will I talk to Sandra and you can see in my second example my adverbial doesn't begin the sentence but it does begin a new Clause that's okay group number five well this isn't really a group this is just one but let's
call it group number five not only but I think a 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 hmm 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 I always thought my ex-colleague Kara was a nice person she was always helping me with my
work and even completed a lot of tasks for me only later did I find out that she was in fact stealing a lot of my ideas and data lemons are usually associated as being a 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 a good feeling about inversion I also hope you're not watching my lesson like this I know grammar is not the most interesting topic in the world but we need to keep going there's a 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 I begin a sentence with just only it doesn't work only my mom can make chocolate chip cookies the way I like them here I 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 I haven't forgotten about group number seven we'll do the exceptions later it's time I have a standard sentence I couldn't find a public
bathroom anywhere how can you change this into an inverted sentence using the adverbial I 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 tens that's in the standard sentence so we form nowhere could I find a public bathroom I don't need to repeat anywhere because I already have nowhere and I don't want a double negative so I wouldn't say nowhere couldn't I find a public bathroom your turn and I will say number six might be a little
bit confusing but give it a try pause the video to do this okay here are the answers take a 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 I want you to pause this video and take a look why are these considered exceptions hmm 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 a comment down below let's continue with exceptions here I have the questions from the start of this lesson are you tall did you buy a new car was Oscar eager to impress his coach you can see that only in sentence two is there an auxiliary verb why because if B is your main verb it's the only verb you need never was it so cold B
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 I said you can see that only in sentence two is there an auxiliary verb B is the only verb it's my main verb I don't need that auxiliary main verb and remember at the start of this lesson I 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 I want to show you what I mean here is a 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 a look late is the hour in which this kundra chooses to appear sentence one and a conjurer is like a wizard let's skip ahead let's keep going [Music] example two let's keep going [Music]
a 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 over using 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 subject bear 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 I am slightly more polite notice in my second sentence the negative I separate should and not you need to do that you can't put them together shouldn't you pay by the ninth second conditional if I had better Vision I 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 plus two were
I to have better Vision I wouldn't need glasses what were I I were is that correct yeah it's a odd exception 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 I were a foot taller I would be able to join my school's basketball team why were I a foot taller I would be able to join my school's basketball team B is my main verb it's the only verb I need third conditional if I
had known about Paul's serious medical condition I wouldn't have complained about my little cold if I hadn't brought a power bank with me my phone would have died conditional number three is um pretty simple you just replace if with had had I known about Paul Sears medical condition had I not brought a 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 sent us down below check out my blog and I can't wait to make
another lesson for you I hope this one helped you see you next time
