part of speech | function or "job" | example words | example sentences |
Verb | action or state | (to) be, have, do, like, work, sing, can, must | EnglishClub.com is a web site. I like EnglishClub.com. |
Noun | thing or person | pen, dog, work, music, town, London, teacher, John | This is my dog. He lives in my house. We live in London. |
Adjective | describes a noun | a/an, the, 69, some, good, big, red, well, interesting | My dog is big. I like big dogs. |
Adverb | describes a verb, adjective or adverb | quickly, silently, well, badly, very, really | My dog eats quickly. When he is very hungry, he eats really quickly. |
Pronoun | replaces a noun | I, you, he, she, some | Tara is Indian. She is beautiful. |
Preposition | links a noun to another word | to, at, after, on, but | We went to school on Monday. |
Conjunction | joins clauses or sentences or words | and, but, when | I like dogs and I like cats. I like cats and dogs. I like dogs but I don't like cats. |
Interjection | short exclamation, sometimes inserted into a sentence | oh!, ouch!, hi!, well | Ouch! That hurts! Hi! How are you? Well, I don't know. |
What is Grammar?
Grammar is the system of a language.People sometimes describe grammar as the "rules"
of a language; but in fact no language has rules.If we use the word "rules", we suggest that
somebody created the rules first and then spoke the language, like a new game. But languages
did not start like that. Languages started by people making sounds which evolved into words,
phrases and sentences. No commonly-spoken language is fixed. All languages change over time.
What we call "grammar" is simply a reflection of a language at a particular time.
Do we need to study grammar to learn a language? The short answer is "no". Very many people
in the world speak their own, native language without having studied its grammar. Children start
to speak before they even know the word "grammar". But if you are serious about learning a
foreign language, the long answer is "yes, grammar can help you to learn a language more
quickly and more efficiently." It's important to think of grammar as something that can help you, like
a friend. When you understand the grammar (or system) of a language, you can understand many
things yourself, without having to ask a teacher or look in a book.
So think of grammar as something good, something positive, something that you can use
to find your way - like a signpost or a map.