Grammar
It was suggested to me that I should write more about basics of the English language, particularly the grammar as sadly, many of us, including native English speakers, struggle with terminology that is used in grammar books of various shapes and forms. This is the first of a series of articles which aim to make you familiar with terms describing elements of English grammar. We will start off slowly and discuss one term only in each article. Today’s question is: What is a noun?
Noun is an arbitrary word that we use to name a person (doctor), animal (giraffe), thing (shoe) or abstract idea (hatred). They are the words that little children learn first when exclaiming mummy, daddy or poo. Basically what you need to remember all the names are nouns. Words in bold in the following sentence are nouns:
I met Jack at school and he mentioned he was going to walk his dog with Susie.
Nouns can change their forms to indicate quantity/number. It means, that if Jack had two dogs rather than one dog, we would add –s to indicate that. In the same way we create other plural nouns (plural indicates there are more than one) e.g. school – schools, book – books.
Easy! If you haven’t subscribed to www.englishfocused.com yet do it now as there’s more to come. Next Wednesday we will explain what a verb is.
- Step By Step Grammar 5: Adverbs
An adverb is a word that we use when describing a verb. It usually ends in –ly and answers the questions: how? (quickly, carefully) When? (recently) How often? (regularly, weekly) . Most adverbs are formed by simply adding the aforementioned –ly to...
- I Are Hulk, I Has No Grammar
Some people tend to think that knowledge of vocabulary is key to being able to speak a foreign language and that grammar is of less importance. Let me tell you that this isn’t true. We use grammar in everyday speech, whether we want to or not. If...
- Step By Step Grammar 3: Adjectives
An adjective is a word that describes nouns (we’ve talked about nouns in Step By Step Grammar 1) and pronouns (we will talk about pronouns in the future but to give you a rough idea these are examples of pronouns: he, she, it). E.g. White cat –...
- Step By Step Grammar 2: Verbs
As mentioned last Wednesday, today we are talking about verbs. The verb is perhaps the most important part of the sentence as the sentence would not exist without the verb! It’s a word that we use to express actions, emotions and beings. In its dictionary...
- Both A Borrower And A Lender Be
I have written an article on word formation processes in the past and the topic has been always close to my heart. I recently tried to do a little research on borrowings and particularly English borrowings in the Polish language. Although I haven’t...
Grammar
Step by step grammar 1: Nouns
It was suggested to me that I should write more about basics of the English language, particularly the grammar as sadly, many of us, including native English speakers, struggle with terminology that is used in grammar books of various shapes and forms. This is the first of a series of articles which aim to make you familiar with terms describing elements of English grammar. We will start off slowly and discuss one term only in each article. Today’s question is: What is a noun?
Noun is an arbitrary word that we use to name a person (doctor), animal (giraffe), thing (shoe) or abstract idea (hatred). They are the words that little children learn first when exclaiming mummy, daddy or poo. Basically what you need to remember all the names are nouns. Words in bold in the following sentence are nouns:
I met Jack at school and he mentioned he was going to walk his dog with Susie.
Nouns can change their forms to indicate quantity/number. It means, that if Jack had two dogs rather than one dog, we would add –s to indicate that. In the same way we create other plural nouns (plural indicates there are more than one) e.g. school – schools, book – books.
Easy! If you haven’t subscribed to www.englishfocused.com yet do it now as there’s more to come. Next Wednesday we will explain what a verb is.
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- Step By Step Grammar 5: Adverbs
An adverb is a word that we use when describing a verb. It usually ends in –ly and answers the questions: how? (quickly, carefully) When? (recently) How often? (regularly, weekly) . Most adverbs are formed by simply adding the aforementioned –ly to...
- I Are Hulk, I Has No Grammar
Some people tend to think that knowledge of vocabulary is key to being able to speak a foreign language and that grammar is of less importance. Let me tell you that this isn’t true. We use grammar in everyday speech, whether we want to or not. If...
- Step By Step Grammar 3: Adjectives
An adjective is a word that describes nouns (we’ve talked about nouns in Step By Step Grammar 1) and pronouns (we will talk about pronouns in the future but to give you a rough idea these are examples of pronouns: he, she, it). E.g. White cat –...
- Step By Step Grammar 2: Verbs
As mentioned last Wednesday, today we are talking about verbs. The verb is perhaps the most important part of the sentence as the sentence would not exist without the verb! It’s a word that we use to express actions, emotions and beings. In its dictionary...
- Both A Borrower And A Lender Be
I have written an article on word formation processes in the past and the topic has been always close to my heart. I recently tried to do a little research on borrowings and particularly English borrowings in the Polish language. Although I haven’t...