Parts of Speech

Examples of adjectives:

Enormous, doglike, silly, yellow, fun, fast.

Many, few, millions, eleven.

Adjectives modify nouns

Most students learn that adjectives are words that modify (describe) nouns. Adjectives do not modify verbs or adverbs or other adjectives. Only a noun!

• Eva wore a beautiful hat to the pie-eating contest.

• Furry dogs may overheat in the summertime.

• My cake should have sixteen candles.

• The scariest villain of all time is Darth Vader.

In the sentences above, the adjectives are easy to spot because they come immediately before the nouns they modify.

Adverbs often end with the suffix -ly (for example: badly, hungrily), but some look the same as their adjective forms (for example, the word fast is used as both an adjective and adverb).

Some examples of adverbs:

I thought the story ended abruptly.

The beautifully painted portrait is a wonderful addition to my office.

Ahmed's iPhone is something he handles delicately.

The school day went by too fast for me to really enjoy it

Articles can be tricky for some learners whose first language does not use them, such as Russian and Lithuanian. Using articles properly is key to ensuring accuracy when you are speaking or writing.

After the long day, the cup of tea tasted particularly good.

After a long day, a cup of tea tastes particularly good.

Definite Article

The definite article is the. It narrows the meaning of a noun to a specific thing.

Get in the car.

Indefinite Article

The indefinite article takes two forms. It’s the word a when it precedes a word that begins with a consonant. It’s the word an when it precedes a word that begins with a vowel. The indefinite article indicates that a noun refers to a general idea rather than a particular thing.

Get in a car

Conjunctions can seem confusing at first, but a conjunction is something that connects things together. There are four types of conjunctions.

Coordinating Conjunction Words: These join the elements that are the same. There are only seven coordinating conjunctions, you can easily remember and identify them with the acronym F.A.N.B.O.Y.S.:

for, and, nor, but, or, yet, so

Subordinating Conjunction Words: It joins the dependent adverb clause with the independent clause. Subordinating conjunction words make one clause less important than another.

after, even if, than, unless, until

Correlative Conjunction Words: These work in pairs to join two clauses or sentences.

Either you cook me lunch, or I leave.

No sooner he had gone to bed than the doorbell rang.

Conjunctive Adverbs: These are also called transition words. They join sentences or words or phrases just like words on the standard conjunction list can.

in addition, as a result, however, hence, furthermore, meanwhile

Interjections are words like wow and yay. They’re sounds we make to convey extreme emotion or to create emphasis when we’re talking, sometimes when we can’t think of a good way to express ourselves. The problem with interjections is that they require a great deal of context to be understood. For instance, hey can mean hello, or that’s great, or stop doing that.

Hey! How’s it going?

Wow! Those fireworks are impressive.

Yay! I passed calculus!

Even intangible or abstract concepts like ideas or thoughts are things.

Gowira doesn’t use an iPhone.

Ahmed doesn’t eat meat.

The Earth is not the center of the universe .

The application of communism in Europe lead the deaths of many people.

Prepositions are little words that tell where or when (among other things) something is.

The monkey is on his back.

The car is behind the school.

The dreamcatcher is above the door.

I, me, she, we, they, who, that, yours, his, her.

Pronouns need antecedents. That means that the thing (or person, or place) that the pronoun refers to needs to have been mentioned already by name somewhere earlier in the sentence or paragraph. If it’s not clear which thing the pronoun refers to, the reader can get quite confused. Before you use a pronoun, you must first mention the noun.

I swam in the ocean.

You swam in the ocean.

He swam in the ocean.

She swam in the ocean.

It swam in the ocean.

Pronoun-Antecedent Agreement

When a pronoun replaces a noun, the noun is called an antecedent. On Michael’s first day of work, he was a little nervous. Michael is the antecedent and he is the pronoun.

The antecedent doesn’t have to go before the pronoun, but in longer sentences it can be confusing to introduce the pronoun before the antecedent.

On his first day of work, Michael was a little nervous.

Verbs are action words: that’s a rather simplified explanation, but it’s the clearest one. Verbs tell you what the subject of the sentence is up to.

He ran into the wall.

She buys new shoes.

The cat licks its fur.

Verb Tense

Verbs come in past, present, and future tenses.

The past is used to describe things that have already happened (e.g., earlier in the day, yesterday, last week, three years ago).

The present tense is used to describe things that are happening right now, or things that are continuous.

The future tense describes things that have yet to happen (e.g., later, tomorrow, next week, next year, three years from now).

Past tense: I lived here when I was ten.

Present tense: I live here now.

Future tense: I will live there when I am retired.

Subject-Verb Agreement

Singular subjects take singular verbs and plural subjects take plural verbs. In this example, the subject is in bold and the verbs are italicized.

My brother is a doctor.

My parents are yoga teachers.