English Language... up dated

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Adjectives

In the examples that follow, the relevant parts of speech are underlined.

Adjectives are used to describe nouns. Adjectives are descriptive words which are used to add detail to a sentence. They can give important or necessary information.

Asking the question What? can usually identify adjectives:

For example:

The girl is pretty.

What is the girl?

She is pretty.

For example: 

A black Mercedes or a wonderful book.

Look at the adjectives underlined in the following paragraph: 

Once upon a time there lived a young girl called Jane. She lived in a crowded city called Mumbai. Mumbai was seen by some people as a big and busy city but by others a varied and exciting city. 

If an adjective is used in a sentence with the verb 'to be', the adjective describes the subject of the sentence.

Adverbs

Adverbs describe verbs. They are descriptive words, which are used to add detail to a sentence. Adverbs add more important information to a sentence and also they can make a sentence more interesting.

Please stop talking now.

The typhoon, which hit the Philippines, violently wrecked many homes.

Most of the time adverbs are made from adjectives by adding 'ly'. There are exceptions.

Adverbs can be identified by how or where or when:

The dog ran quickly.

Adjective

Adverb

slow

slowly

sad

sadly

soft

softly

Exceptions

good

well

fast

fast

late

late

How did the dog run? It ran quickly. An adverb of time and space is normally put at the end of the sentence.

For example: James is going on holiday tomorrow.

Conjunctions

A conjunction is a way to connect 2 shorter sentences together. We can also call them connectives. We like to use conjunctions to give a sentence a smooth flow and this makes it easier for the reader.

Examples of conjunctions are: and, but, or.

If the writer uses too many conjunctions in a sentence, it becomes too difficult and cumbersome for the reader.

Look at the examples below.

I am Jack. I live in Thailand. I am 25 years old. I like Thai food.

As you can see the sentences are short and a little robotic. To make the sentence flow better we can add some conjunctions.

I am Jack and I live in Thailand. I am 25 years old and I like Thai food.

Conjunctions connect thoughts, ideas, actions, nouns, clauses, etc.

Jack went to Thailand to enjoy the wonderful scenery and local food.

The conjunction 'to' connects two sentences: Jack went to Thailand / Jack enjoyed the wonderful scenery and local food.

Determiners

Determiners come before nouns. There are a number of determiners and most can be found in the grammar reference book. The most common determiners are the definite article (the) and the indefinite article (a).

Interjections

These words express feelings and convey extreme emotions like 'Wow', 'Hey', and 'Whoa'. Although they are technically meaningless, they add context to writing.

Prepositions

Prepositions are little words that tell where or when something is.

The key is on the table next to the door.

The toilet is down that corridor.

• Prepositions of manner: by, via 

• Prepositions of amount: about, over 

• Prepositions of time: before, after 

• Prepositions of direction: into, towards

• Prepositions of place: next to, in front of 

• Prepositions of cause: because, due to 

Nouns

What are nouns?

Nouns refer to a person, place, animal or thing. They can convey an idea or a thought.

Here are some examples:

• An example of a person is David Beckham.

• An example of a place is London.

• An example of an animal is lion.

• An example of a thing is a spoon.

• An example of an idea is curiosity.

Here are all of the different types of nouns in the English language.

The proper noun 

The common noun 

The concrete noun 

The abstract noun 

The countable noun (also called the count noun) 

The non-countable noun (also called uncountable noun and the mass noun) 

The group noun (also called the collective noun) 

A noun will be either:

Proper or common, abstract or concrete, and countable or non-countable or collective

We now need to do some practice so that we know how to tell the difference.

What is the difference between a proper and common noun?

Proper nouns are the names of specific people or places. They should always begin with a capital.

Jack is going to Thailand.

London is the capital city of England.

My daughter's name is Emily.

Common nouns are words for people, places, animals or things that aren't specific (as opposed to a proper noun which refers to only one person, place or thing). Common nouns can be countable or uncountable, singular or plural.

There are many horses in the field today.

The reason these are common nouns is because we don't know which horses these are and we don't know the name of the field. 

We can see from the two sentences below how we tell the difference between a proper and a common noun.

Have you seen the book I was reading?

Did you see where I left Romeo and Juliet?

In sentence a), book is a common noun because it is not specific.

In sentence b), Romeo and Juliet relates to an actual book, a specific book, and will be in capital letters as it refers to a proper noun.

What is the difference between an abstract and concrete noun?

An abstract noun is a noun which cannot be identified using one of the five senses (taste, touch, sight, hearing, smelling).

For example:

It took a great deal of courage to dive into the swimming pool and save the boy.

'Courage' is an abstract noun.

Mr Smith had always wanted to follow his dream of becoming a great novelist one day.

'Dream' is a good example of an abstract noun.

A concrete noun is a noun which can be identified through one of the five senses (taste, touch, sight, hearing, smell).

For example:

Could someone please answer the phone?

In this sentence, 'phone' is a concrete noun because it can be identified using the five senses. A person can touch it, see it, hear it and maybe taste and smell it. 

Countable and non-countable

Countable nouns are nouns which can be counted, even if the number might be extraordinarily high (like counting all the people in the world). Countable nouns can be used with a/an, the, some, any, a few and many. 

Here is a crocodile.

A 'crocodile' is a countable noun as would be cars, flowers and pots.

Non-countable or uncountable nouns are nouns which come in a state, or quantity, which is impossible to count:  liquids are uncountable, as are things, which act like liquids like sand and air. They're always considered to be singular, and can be used with a, some, any, a little and much. 

An excellent way to remember an uncountable noun is 'love' and 'dust'.

And a group noun

Good examples of group nouns are a flock of sheep, a herd of cows, an army or gaggle of geese, a school of fish or a troop of monkeys.

Pronouns

Pronouns are used to replace nouns.

For example:

Jack went to Vietnam on holiday last year and loved the country.

We can re-write this sentence: 

He went to Vietnam on holiday last year and loved it.

There are several subclasses of pronouns, but for now we will consider three main sub-classes.

Personal Pronouns

Reflective Pronouns

Possessive Pronouns

Subject 

Object 

I

me            

myself

mine

you 

you

yourself

yours

he

him

himself

his

she

her

herself

hers

it

it

itself

its

we 

us

ourselves

ours

you

you

yourselves

yours

they 

them

themselves

theirs

Verbs

Verbs are the second most important words in English, next to nouns. A sentence must have both a noun and a verb in order to be a proper sentence. 

However, imperatives often miss out the subject (the subject is implied) but they are still regarded as sentences.

For example:  

(You) Go away! she screamed.

(You) Read the instructions with care.

Verbs are vital for creating a sentence in English. They can describe a physical movement like walking or running or how a person thinks or feels. Verbs like 'to be' can be used to describe who we are and can define a state of being. Verbs which define a state of being are called 'stative' verbs.

What are verbs?

Verbs are action or doing words. They can also refer to events and emotions.

Exercise:

Pick out the verbs in the following sentences.

1. He had travelled all over the world before he had a family in the USA.

2. He slept through the thunderstorm.

3. She is going to have twins next months.

4. I think therefore I am.

5. I am running through the rice paddies thinking about being here.

Verbs can be separated by adverbs

For example: 

I have always liked the way you travelled around the world.

A verb can also be contracted.

For example:

I've always enjoyed travelling as much as possible and living in different countries.

It's critical to be able to understand the subject and object of the sentence.

Look at this sentence:

Jack drove his car along the motorway to get to London. 

If we take the sentence, above, we can see that:

• 'drove' is the verb

• 'Jack' is the subject of the verb, i.e. the 'doer' of the action.

• 'car' is the object of the verb, i.e. the thing to which the action of the verb is done. 

Exercise:

Choose the subject and the object from the following sentences.

Jack went all over the world to find happiness.

He ordered 10 loaves of bread from the bakery.

In the event of emergency, please dial 911.

If you keep doing that you will hurt yourself.

The swimming pool was one of the best he had seen in his life.

Uses of verbs:

Verbs will tell us what is actually happening in a sentence, what the subject is doing or going to do. Therefore, subjects can do just about anything and it's potentially amazing what an action verb can do. We can use a verb to start and also change motion.

For example:

Jack ran to the swimming pool then swam 30 lengths. After he stopped his exercise, he went home to relax. 

In this example, the verb gave Jack motion and made him motionless at home.

The second use of a verb is to describe a noun.

For example:

I am tired.

I am sleepy.

Jack is funny.

We can divide verbs into main verbs (lexical verbs) and auxiliary verbs. The main verb shows the action of the subject whereas the auxiliary verb helps the main verb.

For example:

I feel happy.

I was feeling happy.

Understanding auxiliary verbs or helping verbs:

Helping verbs help us decide which tense the sentence is in.

For example:

Jack used to like driving his motorbike until he bought his new car.

In this example, 'like' is the main verb and 'used to' is the auxiliary verb.

You can find out how to construct all verb tenses in the next few sections.

Subject and Object

A basic sentence has a Subject (S), a Verb (V) and an Object (O). Normally, the subject comes first followed by the verb and then the object. 

For example: Jack (S) went (V) to bed (O). 

'Jack' is the subject, the verb is 'went' and the object is 'bed'. 

Nouns can also function as objects. However, instead of performing actions they receive the action and normally they follow the verb. 

For example:

Jack drank some coffee before bed so he couldn't sleep. 

The subject is 'Jack'.

The verb is 'drank'.

The object is 'coffee'.

When you teach sentences, it's crucial that you explain the Subject, Verb and Object construction to your students because many languages do not use this type of construction. 

Gerunds

A gerund is derived from a verb but functions as a noun. A gerund is a noun made from a verb by adding 'ing'.

For example, the gerund of 'to read' is 'reading'.

A gerund is often confused with the Present Participle. A Present Participle is most commonly used as part of the continuous form of the verb, after verbs of perception, after verbs of movement or as an adjective, e.g. I am going.

A gerund always has the same function of a noun, although it looks like a verb. For example: Drivingtoo fast is dangerous. 

Comparatives and Superlatives

We also need to understand the comparative and superlative forms of the adjective as well. Comparatives and superlatives are used when we want to compare two or more things.

Adding 'er' forms comparatives.

Adding 'est' forms superlatives.

For example:

1. big

'bigger and 'the biggest'

2. small

'smaller' and 'the smallest'

3. fast 

'faster' and 'the fastest'

4. slow

'slower' and 'the slowest'

Note that 'the' will be omitted in some constructions: Ronaldo is fast, Messi is faster but Bale is fastest of all.

Some examples are:

My father is older than me.

My sister is much younger than me.

I am the youngest member of my family.

The smallest mammal is a bumblebee bat from Thailand!

There are also some irregular comparatives and superlatives forms that you need to know as well.

Let's have a look:

Comparative and Superlative Exercises:

1. Having to work for 20 hours a day is the _______ job in the world.

a) bader

b) baddest

c) worst

2. Jack can run ________than me.

a) faster

b) more fast

3. He has read _______ books than I have.

a) many

b) more

Numbers

There are 2 types of number in English, cardinal and ordinal.

Cardinal numbers are 'one', 'two', 'three', 'four', etc. and ordinal numbers are 'first', 'second', 'third', etc.

Other Grammar Basics

A conditional construction has two clauses with one sentence depending on the other one.

For example:

If you forget to turn the oven on, your food will not cook.

Your food will not cook if you forget to turn the oven on.

It happens!

These sentences have exactly the same meaning. The only differences are the word order and the comma in the first example.

Zero Conditional: 

The Zero Conditional is used to convey fact, truth or principle. For example: If you go to a Thai Temple, you take your shoes off and cover your arms and legs. 

With this sentence the tense is the present simple. You can also start the sentence with 'when' instead of 'if'.

Rule: 'if' or 'when' followed by the two clauses, which are both in the present simple, then it's Zero Conditional. 

A matching exercise is useful for teaching conditionals. Give you students some sentences and mix them up.

First Conditional:

The First Conditional is used when a situation or outcome is possible but it's depending on something else happening. 

Rule: 'if or when' followed by a clause in the present simple followed by a clause in the future simple: If you train hard for the run you will win. 

Again, matching exercises are good for teaching the First Conditional. You can also get students talking about what will happen in the future if they pass their examinations: If I pass my exams, I will be able to go to University. 

Second Conditional: 

The Second Conditional conveys a message, which is hypothetical, imaginary or unlikely. 

Rule: 'If' followed by the past simple in the first clause followed by 'would' in the second clause: If I found gold on my land, I would look for more.

A good way to teach the Second Conditional is to use a song by Katie Melua called 'If I were a sailboat' and get the students to come up with their own version. 

You can also use situations to teach it: If I failed the exam, I would go and get a job. Give students a number of scenarios. They could be moral dilemmas: If you saw someone stealing some sweets from a shop, what would you do? 

Third Conditional:

The Third Conditional is used to convey regret or for things that happened in the past. 

Rule: 'If' followed by a clause in the past perfect followed by a clause with 'would have+ and a past participle. Wow!

For example: If I had departed a little earlier that day, I would have avoided seeing the accident. 

In summary, when you teach the conditionals remember to have fun and use positive language. 

Infinitive

Infinitive Form: 

This is the verb form before it changes tense. For example: 'to run', 'to speak'. 

Auxiliary Verbs

Auxiliary Verbs are helping verbs because they help the main verb. The main Auxiliary Verbs are 'to be', 'to have' and 'to do'.

Present Participle

The Present Participle is often referred to as the 'ing' form of the verb but it's crucial that you don't confuse it with a gerund, which is a noun.

Present Participles are used for continuous tenses like the Present, Past and Future continuous. They are also used for the Present, Past and Future Perfect Continuous. 

For example:

'To run' becomes 'running'

'To drink' become 'drinking' 

Past Participle

The Past Participle is used to show a completed action or action in the past. It is sometimes called the 'ed' form as it is normally formed by adding 'd' or 'ed' to the base form of regular verbs.

However, there are many irregular forms of the past participle which must be taught.