Parts of speech
| Part | What it does | Examples |
|---|---|---|
| Noun | Names a person, place, thing or idea | girl, Delhi, book, honesty |
| Pronoun | Takes the place of a noun | he, she, it, they, we |
| Verb | Shows an action or a state | run, is, write |
| Adjective | Describes a noun | tall, red, three |
| Adverb | Tells how, when or where an action happens | quickly, today, here |
| Preposition | Shows the relation of a noun to another word | in, on, under, between |
| Conjunction | Joins words or sentences | and, but, because |
| Interjection | Shows a sudden feeling | Oh! Wow! Alas! |
Articles
| Article | Use | Examples |
|---|---|---|
| a | Before a consonant sound | a book, a university, a one-rupee coin |
| an | Before a vowel sound | an apple, an hour, an honest boy |
| the | For a particular or known thing, and unique things | the sun, the Ganga, the Himalayas |
It is the sound, not the letter, that decides between a and an.
The twelve tenses (verb: play)
| Tense | Structure | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Simple present | V1 (add s or es for he, she, it) | She plays. |
| Present continuous | am, is or are + V-ing | She is playing. |
| Present perfect | has or have + V3 | She has played. |
| Present perfect continuous | has or have been + V-ing | She has been playing. |
| Simple past | V2 | She played. |
| Past continuous | was or were + V-ing | She was playing. |
| Past perfect | had + V3 | She had played. |
| Past perfect continuous | had been + V-ing | She had been playing. |
| Simple future | will + V1 | She will play. |
| Future continuous | will be + V-ing | She will be playing. |
| Future perfect | will have + V3 | She will have played. |
| Future perfect continuous | will have been + V-ing | She will have been playing. |
V1 is the base form, V2 the past form and V3 the past participle.
Common irregular verbs
| V1 (present) | V2 (past) | V3 (past participle) |
|---|---|---|
| go | went | gone |
| eat | ate | eaten |
| see | saw | seen |
| write | wrote | written |
| take | took | taken |
| give | gave | given |
| know | knew | known |
| begin | began | begun |
| drink | drank | drunk |
| run | ran | run |
| come | came | come |
| do | did | done |
| fly | flew | flown |
| speak | spoke | spoken |
| choose | chose | chosen |
| break | broke | broken |
| buy | bought | bought |
| bring | brought | brought |
| teach | taught | taught |
| think | thought | thought |
| catch | caught | caught |
| sing | sang | sung |
| swim | swam | swum |
| ride | rode | ridden |
| wear | wore | worn |
| draw | drew | drawn |
| grow | grew | grown |
| throw | threw | thrown |
| forget | forgot | forgotten |
| sit | sat | sat |
| stand | stood | stood |
| sleep | slept | slept |
Punctuation marks
| Mark | Name | Use |
|---|---|---|
| . | Full stop | Ends a statement |
| ? | Question mark | Ends a question |
| ! | Exclamation mark | Shows strong feeling |
| , | Comma | Separates items in a list or parts of a sentence |
| ; | Semicolon | Joins two closely related sentences |
| : | Colon | Introduces a list or an explanation |
| ' | Apostrophe | Shows belonging (Ravi's pen) or a missing letter (don't) |
| " " | Quotation marks | Show the exact words someone says |
Handy rules
- A sentence begins with a capital letter and ends with a full stop, question mark or exclamation mark.
- The verb agrees with its subject: He plays, They play.
- Use a or an by sound: an hour, a unit.
- Use I, he, she, we, they as the subject and me, him, her, us, them as the object.
- Add es to verbs ending in s, sh, ch, x, o when the subject is he, she or it: watches, goes.