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
ADJECTIVES come before the NOUN:
Sometimes a word can be a VERB and a NOUN:
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!
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”
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].
