Getting Started

Inversion is a high-level grammatical construction which will be particularly useful in your Writing, as well as in the Reading and Use of English paper. It is considered formal and the form of inversion requires some thinking about. Therefore, it is not recommended for use in the Speaking part of the exam unless you are feeling really confident.

Inversion requires changing normal word order to make a sentence more dramatic or emphatic and should only be used occasionally. Overuse it and you will sound unnatural, but it certainly has its place  – something which will be covered in this lesson.

Commonly used with negative adverbials and other expressions, such as Only when, Only once and Hardly, involves changing the order of the subject and the auxiliary verb. Basically, inverted clauses look like questions even though they are not. Take, for example, the following:

I seldom get the chance to taste such delicious food.

This is a present simple sentence so requires the auxiliary do after seldom. The inversion is as follows:

Seldom do I get the chance to taste such delicious food.

Before we take a detailed look at how to construct different types of inverted clauses, match the expression used for inversions on the left with the rest of its sentence, paying close attention to how they are formed. These are examples and more will become apparent as you work through the lesson.