ESL: The Basics of English Words

This blog entry is about the very basics of the English language for non-native speakers. These concepts are very important when learning English as a Second Language. They are the foundation of writing and speaking correctly. Let us begin with the different types of words.

Nouns

What is a noun? A noun is a person, place, thing, animal, idea or event. Words such as doctor, house, chair, cat, victory and lunch are all nouns because they fit into one of these categories. When a noun is very specific to a particular a person, place, thing, animal, idea or event, it is called a proper noun. The first letter in each word of a proper noun is always capitalized. This is why people’s names, cities, countries, and holidays are always capitalized. For example, John Smith is spelled with capital letters J and S rather than being spelled john smith.

Pronouns

What is a pronoun? A pronoun is a word that takes place of a noun previously mentioned by a speaker or writer. Pronouns include he, she, you, we, it and I. For any male person, the pronoun he is used. For any female person, the pronoun she is used. When referring directly to another person or group of people, the pronoun you is used. When referring to oneself and other person(s), the pronoun we is used. When referring to objects or things, the pronoun it is used. When referring to oneself, the pronoun I is used. Here are some examples of pronouns in use in English writing:

“John and I were walking down the street. We were both heading to the restaurant to have lunch together.”

“The final exam is coming up soon for our class at university. Studying for it is something we have to do.”

“Jane loves to play the piano. She is very creative and talented in creating music.”

“Ian works at a bakery. He helps make bread and other baked goods for customers.”

“I turned to the other students and asked, ‘What are you going to do?’”

Did you notice how the words I, we, he, she, it and you were used to replace nouns? This is what pronouns are used for in English.

Verbs

What is a verb? Simply, verbs are words that describe action. These actions include working, thinking, moving, feeling, and anything else anything or anyone can do. Verbs have many different possible conjugations based on the particular tense, subject, person and numbers involved. For instance, the word run is conjugated to running when it refers to a single man in the present tense, “He is running right now.”

Adjectives

Adjectives are words that provide descriptions for nouns. They tell you what the nouns are like. Some examples include,

The tall man is talented in basketball.

The black cat is small.

The lemonade is sweet.

She is smart and clever.

The tree is brown.

The comedian is funny.

In these sentences, tall, talented, black, small, sweet, smart, clever, brown and funny are all instances of adjectives. Notice how adjectives come before the noun when they are “attached” to one another. In English, it is always ordered “the tall man” rather than “the man tall” or “man tall.”

For example,

Correct: The happy dog wagged his tail.

Incorrect: The dog happy wagged his tail.

Adverbs

Like adjectives, adverbs are words that describe. Adverbs describe verbs; they describe in what manner someone or something does an action. Adverbs often, but not always, end with the letters “-ly.” For example, gently, quickly, slowly, constantly, and forcibly are all adverbs.

Prepositions

Prepositions are words that modify or compliment nouns or verbs in between different “thoughts” within a sentence. Words such as beneath, under, to, from, for, on, at, with, in and until are used as preposition to give necessary information to make a sentence make sense. Consider the following incorrect sentence:

The man sits the table.

Without a preposition, there is not enough information to make sense of the verb (“sits”) that is right next to the object (“the table”). Consider the preposition “at” being added to the sentence:

The man sits at the table.

This is correct. It makes the sentence far more understandable.

These six categories are just the most common of types of words, but they are the necessary tools to begin to master the English language. See if you can use this information to express your own ideas in English sentences. If you are interested in receiving help for school projects that are in the English language or you simply want to improve on your English skills, contact Kingston University USA. We hope to hear from you and will post more blog posts in the near future. 

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