Step by step grammar 7: Conjunctions

Conjunction joins two words or sentences together. A few examples in bold can be found in the sentences below:

Lucy smokes and drinks a lot. Attractive she may be, but nevertheless stupid. Would you really go out with someone like that or rather find a girl you can have a conversation with?

We distinguish a couple of types of conjunctions depending on their function. Some of them join two single items e.g. Tea or coffee? Others introduce a dependent clause to our utterance e.g. He kicked the oven door in fury; therefore, it was then broken.

I hope this was easy. If you haven’t subscribed to English Focused yet do it now as there’s more to come. Next Wednesday we will explain what an interjection 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 the end of an adjective e.g. slow – slowly, patient – patiently, smooth – smoothly etc., however, there are exceptions too e.g. good – well, fast – fast.

We said that an adverb describes a verb. Look at the following examples:

I walked slowly. – slowly describes the verb walked – how did I walk/in what manner did I walk? Slowly.
I recently purchased a new vehicle. – When did I purchase that new vehicle? Recently.
I frequently exercise. – How often do I exercise? Frequently.

I hope this was 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 preposition is.

Step by step grammar 4: Pronouns

A pronoun can replace a noun and refers to a specific person or thing. There are different types of pronouns but for now it’s enough for you to know that words such as I, you, he, she, it, we, they and variations of these e.g. mine, yours or myself, yourself etc are all pronouns.

Words in bold in the following sentence are pronouns:

I like him but I don’t think she does as she fell out with him some time ago.


This, that, these, those are also pronouns and so are words such as everyone, everything, whoever, whichever.

Words in bold in the following sentence are pronouns:

You can kiss whomever you like but I don’t approve of that.


As you can tell, pronouns work a bit like nouns - to see what nouns are check Step by step grammar 1: Nouns - in other words they substitute nouns but aren't proceeded by articles (a/an/the). Pronouns act as a shortcut and save you from repeating the name of a person or thing you have already mentioned.

I hope this was 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 an adverb  is.

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 – cat is a noun, white describes a cat, therefore is an adjective.

Words in bold in the following sentence are adjectives:

I started reading this fantastic book about a brave captain who goes on a transatlantic journey in order to win the heart of a beautiful princess.

Sometimes it also quantifies nouns and pronouns e.g. many people – many is an adjective. Attention: an adjective does not describe a verb (we’ve talked about verbs in Step By Step Grammar 2) or another adjective. E.g. I talk openly about my problems – openly describes a verb talk and therefore is NOT an adjective but an adverb. We will talk about adverbs in the future. Those two parts of speech i.e. adjective and adverb often get confused.

There are different types of adjectives, but you don’t need to know about them just yet, we will probably talk about it later on when you feel a bit more comfortable with grammar and its basics.

I hope this was 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 pronoun is.

 

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 form it follows the word ‘’to’’and we call this form infinitive e.g. to take, to hate, to be.

In English verbs take different forms too and there are also different types of verbs. You might want to find out more about it once you feel a bit more comfortable with all those grammatical twists as I don’t want to confuse you just yet! For now it’s enough to know that the forms verbs take are to do with the tense and the person in the sentence. For instance the verb to be can take following forms: I am, you are, he is, I was, you were, I am being etc.

Words in bold in the following sentence are verbs:

I met Jack at school and he mentioned he was going to walk his dog with Susie.

I hope this was 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 an adjective is.

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.