How to learn English Grammar?You need to understand the grammar building blocks,so you know how to compose great pieces of English writing or speech.
Specific part of speech:
- Anounis a person,place,or thing.Example:grandma,school,pencil
- Apronounis a word that takes the place of a noun within a sentence.Example:he,she,they
- Articlesare special terms that proceed a noun within a sentence.There are three articles:a,an,the
- Anadjectivemodifies or describes a noun or pronoun.Example:red,tall
- Averbis a word that describes an action or state of being.Example:be,run,sleep
- Anadverbmodifies or describes a verb.Adverbs can also be used to modify adjectives.Example:happily,wonderfully
- Aconjunctionjoins two parts of a sentence together.Example:and,but
- Aprepositionis used in combination within a noun or pronoun to create a phrase that modifies other parts of speech,like a verb,noun,pronoun,or adjective.Example:up,down,of,from
- Interjectionsare words that express an emotional state.Example:Wow, ouch, hey
Most parts of speech have additional rules governing their usage.Here are the rules:
- Nounscan be:singular or plural;proper or common;collective;count or non-count;abstract or concrete;gerunds
- Pronounscan be: personal, possessive, reflexive, intensive, reciprocal, indefinite, demonstrative, interrogative, or relative
- Thearticles“a” and “an” are indefinite,while the article “the” is definite.
- Adjectivescan be used on their own,for the sake of making comparisons,or as superlatives.
- Verbscan be:action verbs or linking verbs;main verbs or auxiliary/helping verbs
- Adverbsare either relative adverbs or adverbs of frequency.
- Conjunctionare either coordinating or correlative.
At minimum,every sentence consists of a subject and an action.A sentence that lacks either one is a sentence fragment and is considered to be improper.And the subject is usually a noun or pronoun,and the action is conveyed using a verb.
Expand your sentences into more complex forms after mastering this basic format.
Within a sentence,both the subject and verb must share the same singular/plural state.When two singular subjects are connected with the word “and”(he and his brother),the subject becomes plural.But connected by “or” or “nor”(he or his brother),the subject is singular.
Collective nouns,like “family” or “team” ,are treated as singular nouns and require a singular verb.
Compound sentences are the easiest sentence form to master after the basic sentence.Use a conjunction to join two related thoughts into one sentence rather than forming two separate sentences.
Use clauses to form complex sentences.Clauses are the “building block” that can be used to expand a sentence past its basic form.They can be independent or dependent.An independent clause has its own subject and verb.As a result,it could stand as its own sentence.For example:
She felt sad,but her friends cheered her up. Both “she felt sad” and “her friends cheered her up” could stand as separate sentences.
A dependent clause is one that could not stand as its own sentence.Example: While he agreed with his brother, the boy would not admit to it.
The clause “While he agreed with his brother” would not make sense a separate sentence, so it is a dependent clause.
