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English Review: Parts of Speech March 29th, 2015

The “parts of speech” are the different kinds of grammatical words that we use to build our sentences. When we put the parts of speech words together in the correct order, we can make sentences that make us sound like native speakers!

Here are the basic parts of speech and easy definitions to remember:

NOUN: a person, place, or thing

Example: girl, house, book, idea, music, friend, school, happiness

VERB: an action

Example: run, dance, walk, think, see, remember, appreciate

ADJECTIVE: describes a noun

Example: blue, interesting, angry, difficult, skinny, long, American

ADVERB: describes a verb

Example: slowly, fast, sadly, carefully, well, intelligently

Notes to Remember:

ADJECTIVES come before the NOUN:

  • “a pretty photograph”
  • “the dark, lonely room”
  • “her friendly neighbor”

Sometimes a word can be a VERB and a NOUN:

  • a yell / to yell
  • a fight / to fight
  • a judge / to judge
  • a watch / to watch
  • a vote / to vote

An ADVERB may be put in several places in the sentence. Be careful, because you may change the meaning or focus of the sentence depending on where you put the adverb!

  • -We waited patiently for the bus.
  • -We patiently waited for the bus.
  • -Officially, I am not allowed to tell you that.
  • -I am not officially allowed to tell you that.

Other parts of speech include:

PRONOUN: can replace specific nouns

Subject pronouns: I, you, he, she, it, we, you (pl.), they

Indefinite pronouns: all, anything, each, everyone, many, few, etc…

PREPOSITION: indicates relationships (between people, objects, ideas)

Location: on, at, under, within, into, behind, among

Relationship to group: of, except, like, beside

Time: of, in, at, on

CONJUNCTIONS: connect ideas, words, or clauses

Examples: and, or, but, yet, so, nor

ARTICLES: signal a noun

Definite article: “the” Indefinite articles: “a/an”

SAMPLE SENTENCE

The new student wrote all of the new words in her notebook. = [definite article] [adjective] [singular noun] [VERB] [pronoun] [preposition] [definite article] [adjective] [plural noun] [preposition] [possessive pronoun] [singular noun].