- There are eight parts of speech in English. These are nouns, pronouns, verbs, adverbs, adjectives, prepositions, conjunctions and interjections. All parts of speech except interjections must be connected using grammatical structure.
- A noun is a person, place or thing. Pronouns are terms such as he, she and it. A verb represents an action the subject is taking and is being acted upon the object of the sentence. Adjectives are modifiers that describe nouns, and adverbs are modifiers that describe verbs. Prepositions express the relationship of nouns or pronouns to other words in a sentence. Conjunctions connect words or phrases. Interjections are exclamations that serve no real grammatical function.
- In English grammar, nouns and pronouns can function as a subject or object. Verbs must be conjugated according to the subject of the sentence. Use tense to reflect the time that an action is being taken. Tenses include the present simple, present continuous and past perfect tenses. Adjectives describe the qualities of a noun such as shape, size, number and quality, as well as possession. Adverbs describe how, when and where events take place and often end in the -ly suffix. Prepositions include words such as to, for and from. Conjunctions include terms such as and, or and but. Interjections are words such as "Wow!" "Hey!" and "Oh!"
- The subject are often placed at the beginning of a sentence, followed by the verb. The object of the sentence comes after the verb. Adjectives are usually placed before the words they modify; however, adverbs may occur after the verb in question. Prepositions begin a prepositional phrase such as "of the store," "on the wall" or "in the street." Conjunctions are typically placed between nouns or verbs. For example, "Mary and John may choose either the corn or the potatoes," is an example of a sentence with conjunctions. Interjections may be placed freely without much concern as to grammatical structure.
- It is a common error to capitalize nouns that are being emphasized or the names of professions. It is correct to write New York and Dr. John Smith with capital letters. However, when writing about your new car or your favorite doctor, do not capitalize the terms. Common errors in verb conjugation include confusing the past simple form with the past perfect. For example, to say, "He had went to the store," is incorrect. Instead this should read, "He had gone to the store."
