The first, second, third, and fourth batches of English B2 lessons covered imaginary pasts, the passive, reporting, relative clauses, deduction, precise timing, the causative, advanced gerunds, phrasal verbs, participle clauses, inversion, and cleft sentences.

Four more B2 lessons are live — and with them, the whole B2 curriculum is complete. This final batch covers sharper contrast linkers, a genuinely new way to shorten relative clauses, precise language for talking about groups, and the unreal past.

🎉 B2 Is Complete

This batch finishes exactly what the fourth batch's FAQ promised was coming next: linkers of contrast and concession, reduced relative clauses, determiners, and the unreal past. With these four published, all 21 topics on the English B2 learning path are now live — from the third conditional all the way through cleft sentences.

  • Precision and nuance — linkers of contrast and concession beyond although/however, and determiners for talking about a group exactly.
  • Fluent sentence-building — a new way to shorten relative clauses, and the unreal past for talking about the present hypothetically.

👉 Explore the whole thing on the English B2 learning path.

🔤 Precision and Nuance

Linkers of contrast & concession

You already know although, despite, but, and however. This lesson adds the next layer: comparing two facts side by side, softening a contrast, or signalling a more formal, written-style concession.

Tom loves spicy food, whereas his sister can't stand it. The forecast was terrible. Nevertheless, we went ahead. On the one hand, remote work gives flexibility. On the other hand, it can make teamwork harder.

Whereas and while simply set two facts side by side, with no surprise implied — unlike although, which signals something unexpected. Nevertheless, nonetheless, and even so are formal-to-neutral ways of saying "despite that," and — like however — they need a full stop or semicolon before them when following a complete sentence, not just a comma. Still and yet do the same job more informally, and on the other hand presents an alternative view rather than a surprise.

👉 Linkers of contrast & concession builds on linkers of reason & contrast and also covers punctuation patterns and register differences across all seven linkers.

Reduced relative clauses

You likely already know two ways to shorten a relative clause: dropping the object pronoun (the film I recommended), and turning a subject clause into a participle (the man standing by the door). This lesson adds a genuinely new third tool — reducing all the way down to a to-infinitive.

She was the first person who arrived → She was the first person to arrive. I need something that I can wear → I need something to wear.

After a superlative, a sequence word (first, next, last), only, or an indefinite word like something or nowhere, a clause expressing achievement, order, possibility, or necessity often reduces to a to-infinitive — and any preposition the original clause needed stays right at the end: no one to talk to, nothing to worry about.

👉 Reduced relative clauses recaps the two familiar techniques briefly and covers the new to-infinitive pattern in full, including its passive form and when for + noun is needed.

🎯 Fluent Sentence-Building

Determiners: all, both, neither, either, none

English has a small set of words for saying exactly how much of a group you mean — every member, not a single one, or just some. Getting these right is the difference between a vague sentence and a precise one.

All students must register by Friday. None of the students passed. Both answers are correct.

All and none are the three-or-more versions of "every" and "not one"; both and neither are the exact same idea for a group of exactly two. A classic precision trap: All of them didn't call is genuinely ambiguous between not all (some did call) and none (nobody called) — putting not directly before all/both removes the ambiguity.

👉 Determiners (all, both, neither, either, none) covers the all/none pair in depth, connects them to both, either and neither, and walks through the not all vs. none ambiguity trap with a full table.

The unreal past

It's time we left. I'd rather you didn't smoke in here. She acts as if she owned the place. None of these sentences are actually about the past — yet each one uses a past-tense verb, the same trick English uses in the second conditional and with wish.

It's time we left — it's (about/high) time + past simple says something should already be happening. I'd rather you stayed home tonight — a present preference about someone else's action. He spoke as if he had written the report himself — but he hadn't — an unreal comparison about an earlier moment.

The form depends on whose action is described (would rather + bare infinitive for your own preference, but + past simple or past perfect once there's a new subject) and whether the unreal moment is now or earlier (past simple vs. past perfect after as if/as though).

👉 Unreal past (it's time, would rather, as if) covers all three patterns, their common mixed-up forms, and how they connect back to the second conditional and wish.

📈 More Than Free Reading

These lessons are free — but GrammarMama's practice side is where the real progress happens, and that part gets personal:

  • Know your level. A quick placement conversation places you on the CEFR scale (A1–C2), so practice starts exactly where you are.
  • Follow a curriculum, not random exercises. Practice is steered by the same curriculum behind these articles, with a visual roadmap showing what's next and what you've already mastered.
  • It remembers your mistakes — and your vocabulary. Every mistake and every new word gets scheduled for review with spaced repetition, so it resurfaces right when you're about to forget it.
  • A few minutes a day, every day. Daily exercises adapt to what you need most: a new grammar point, a review of yesterday's mistakes, or vocabulary that's due.

👉 Head to Practice to find your level and start your first exercise.

📖 Closing the B2 Chapter

Five batches, twenty-one topics, one CEFR level — done. It started with the third conditional and mixed conditionals, moved through the passive, reported speech, and non-defining relative clauses, added precise timing with the future perfect and past perfect continuous, picked up the causative and advanced gerunds, sharpened phrasal verbs and inversion, and closes here — with contrast linkers, a genuinely new relative-clause reduction, precise group language, and the unreal past. If you've followed all five, that's a full CEFR level of grammar behind you.

B2 doesn't stop being useful the moment it's "finished," though — these lessons stay free and open for as long as you need to come back to them. And the next chapter is already taking shape: extending the curriculum further, toward C1.

👉 Open the English B2 learning path and see the whole thing, start to finish — from the third conditional to the unreal past.