Questions are used to get information we do not already have. There are a number of different ways of forming questions in English depending on the kind of information we want. Questions are basically the other side of the coin to statements in that statements give...
Grammatical Number is the term used to describe whether something is singular (just one) or plural (more than one). In English this applies to nouns, verbs and determiners and depending on the number the form of these may change. Nouns The usual way to change a noun...
In grammar person is used to show the relationship between the speaker and the listener or the writer and the reader. For example, if I talk about myself I use the pronoun I but if someone talks to me, they use the pronoun you. So depending on the person doing the...
We use Indirect Speech (sometimes called Reported Speech) to repeat and report what someone has said earlier. This is in comparison with Direct Speech which is what the person actually says. "Live long and prosper," said Spock. This is direct speech; these are the...
A Phrase is a group of two or more words which work grammatically the same as a single word. As such a phrase can function as a verb, a noun, an adverb, a preposition or an adjective. For example these are all phrases: the old man standing on the beach was...
When using conditionals, it is sometimes difficult to know when to use the First Conditional and when to use the Second Conditional. This article looks at how to choose between the two types, and which is best to use. First or Second? Generally speaking, if you...
We all know what a sentence is. But it's useful to break a sentence down and talk about Clauses as well when you're teaching English. These are, essentially, the building blocks of sentences and each sentence contains one or more clauses. a sentence = one or more...
Grammar is the way in which words come together to form sentences (or utterances in spoken language). It is difficult to define this word accurately because people use it in different ways. Some definitions include: the branch of linguistics which deals with...
A Conditional is a kind of sentence which uses a word such as if. It talks about situations which are not real and imagines what might happen. There are 3 main types of conditional sentences each used in a slightly different situation. First Conditional We use the...
A sentence is a group of words beginning with a capital letter and ending with a full stop/period, exclamation mark or question mark. It is the written equivalent of an utterance. My name is Conan. We won! Is July going to be hot here? Sentence Types There are a...
Punctuation is the use of different marks to show how a sentence is constructed and should be read and understood. It is, if you like, the written equivalent of pauses and emphasis. In English the following punctuation marks are used: apostrophes brackets or...
When the subject performs the action described by the verbs we talk about sentences in the Active Voice. By voice grammarians mean a grammatical category that shows whether the subject of a sentence is an actor or a recipient. In the active voice the subject is an...
An adverbial clause is a subordinate clause that act as the adverb in a sentence. It normally answers the questions: how, when, where, how much. We can join two clauses using a simple conjunction. She heard the door open while she was watching television. The second...
English sentences are mostly built using a simple pattern known as SVO which stands for Subject + Verb + Object: {subject} + {verb} + {object} Madeleine + broke + the wine glass. The most important information in a sentence usually comes at the beginning and...
In general when we look at an English sentence to see who is doing what to whom (grammatically speaking), we can say that the subject does something to the object: {subject} + does something to + {object} Jesse Owens + won + 4 gold medals. I + believe + your sister....
The causative form is a special form of passive voice we use when we speak about a professional service which someone does for us. He's having a tooth repaired. She is having her nails painted. As you can see, it's used to talk about someone doing something for us,...
Look at these sentences: James Bond drives an Aston Martin. Bond is chasing the killer! 007 kissed the beautiful Russian agent. In each one the subject has been highlighted. The subject is the main theme of the sentence; it is what the sentence is all about. It is,...
Most sentences have a subject; the Predicate is the rest of the sentence which tells us about that subject. In these examples, the subject of the sentence is Plato and the predicate is highlighted bold. Plato thought. Plato was an ancient Greek philosopher. Plato is...
