How to Identify Parts of Speech

The English language has eight parts of speech. These parts include verbs, adverbs, nouns, pronouns, prepositions, adjectives, interjections and conjunctions. You use each of these in a sentence to make up English reading and writing. You have to be able to identify each in order to know how to use them.

Instructions

1. Choose which verb to use in your sentence, because all complete sentences must have a verb. Verbs usually fall into two categories, action and existence. An action verb is showing something happening, such as "He ran in a five-mile race." Verbs showing existence are ones like "seem, be, belong and exist."

2. Modify your verb by using adverbs. An adverb tells more about a verb, just as an adjective tells more about a noun. Some adverbs end in "ly" such as "quickly, slowly and carefully," but others are just words that describe the verb such as "often, well, fast and still."

3. Use a noun when you are referring to a person, place or thing. You use nouns as subjects and objects in a sentence.

4. Select a pronoun when you want to use a small word in place of a noun. Some common pronouns are "I, me, he, she, them, us, they, we and ours."

5. Pick a preposition to use in your sentence. Prepositions usually come in front of a pronoun or noun and express a relation to another element or word. Some common prepositions are "at, by, for, of and with."

6. Decide on an adjective to describe your noun. An adjective can be as simple as one word such as "a dog" and as complicated as many words such as "a big, ugly, barking dog." When you use multiple adjectives, you separate them with a comma.

7. Put interjections into your sentences when you want to express emotions. Some common interjections are "Oh, Ah and Um."

8. Join sentences by using conjunctions. Conjunctions have three basic forms--compound words, single words and correlative words. Some examples of conjunctions are "and, but, as long as and so."