The first and second batches of English B2 lessons covered imaginary pasts, the passive, reporting, relative clauses, and deduction about the past.

Five more B2 lessons are live. This time: judging the past more precisely, placing actions exactly on the timeline — future or past — and two sets of flexible verb patterns for arranging services and handling trickier gerund/infinitive choices.

🆕 Five More B2 Lessons

This batch falls into three groups:

  • Judging the past — should have and needn't have for criticism, regret, and unnecessary actions, continuing straight on from must have / can't have in the last batch.
  • Precise timing — the future continuous and future perfect for placing an action exactly on the future timeline, and the past perfect continuous for emphasising how long something had been going on before a past point.
  • Getting things done, flexibly — the causative (have/get something done) for services arranged on your behalf, and advanced gerund & infinitive patterns for verbs that shift meaning or drop to altogether.

👉 You'll find them all on the English B2 learning path.

⚖️ Judging the Past

Advanced modals: should have, needn't have

You already know how to guess about the past with must have and can't have. This lesson covers a different job for the same modal + have + past participle shape: not guessing, but judging — criticising a missed action, regretting a mistake, or pointing out that something turned out to be unnecessary.

You should have called me. Why didn't you? You shouldn't have shouted at him. I needn't have brought an umbrella — it didn't rain.

Should have means the action didn't happen, but it should have. Shouldn't have and needn't have both mean the action did happen — shouldn't have says it was the wrong thing to do; needn't have says it simply wasn't necessary.

👉 Advanced modals builds on modals of deduction: past and also covers could have for missed possibilities, and how these compare to didn't need to / didn't have to.

⏱️ Precise Timing

Future continuous & future perfect

You already know several ways to talk about the future. This lesson adds two more precise tools for placing an action relative to a specific moment — not just saying it will happen, but exactly when, relative to that moment.

This time tomorrow, I will be flying to Rome. (in progress at that moment) By tomorrow evening, I will have arrived. (finished before that moment)

Future continuous (will be + -ing) is for something already in progress at a future moment. Future perfect (will have + past participle) is for something already finished by a future point.

👉 Future continuous & future perfect builds on future forms review and covers form tables, timelines, signal words, and the future perfect continuous for extra emphasis on duration.

Past perfect continuous

You already know the past perfect (I had finished) and the present perfect continuous (I've been waiting). The past perfect continuous combines both ideas: an activity that was in progress for some time before a point in the past.

I*'d been waiting** for an hour when the bus finally came.* She was tired because she*'d been working** all night.*

The form is always had + been + verb-ing — had never changes, whatever the subject. Use it to emphasise duration before a past moment, or to explain a past situation through its recent cause.

👉 Past perfect continuous builds on the past perfect and the present perfect continuous, and contrasts it against both the past perfect simple and the plain past continuous.

🔧 Getting Things Done, Flexibly

Causative: have / get something done

Think about the difference between I cut my hair and I had my hair cut — the second clearly means someone else did it for you. English builds this idea from have or get + object + past participle.

I had my hair cut yesterday. We're getting the house painted next month.

Unlike the plain passive, the causative keeps you in the sentence and stresses that you arranged the service — usually one you pay for.

👉 Causative: have/get something done covers the difference between have and get, how the tense of have carries the whole meaning, and how the same structure can also describe an unwanted event that happened to you.

Gerunds & infinitives: advanced patterns

You already know that some verbs are followed by -ing and others by to + verb, and the four meaning-changing verbs remember, forget, stop, try. This lesson goes further: gerunds doing a noun's job, more meaning-changing verbs, and patterns where to disappears altogether.

Swimming is good exercise. I regret leaving my last job. I saw him run down the street. My parents let me stay up late.

A gerund can be the subject of a sentence; regret, mean, go on join the earlier meaning-changing verbs; the easily-confused used to / be used to / get used to family gets sorted out; and perception verbs plus make/let/help drop to for a bare infinitive.

👉 Gerunds & infinitives: advanced patterns builds on gerunds & infinitives (verb patterns) from B1.

🆓 Still Free, Still Open

All five lessons are free to read — no account, no login, no paywall. Each one ends with a short quick-check so you can test yourself on the spot.

📈 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.

⭐ Take a Look

The B2 path keeps growing.

👉 Open the English B2 learning path, start with advanced modals, and keep building your upper-intermediate English.