Learn English Verbs

You may be knowledgeable about a certain area of expertise, but if you cannot communicate effectively, your ability to share that knowledge is affected. The incorrect subject-verb agreement can cause your writing to be confusing to the reader.

For example, the sentence below has an incorrect subject-verb agreement.

If your subjects and verbs disagree, you do not sound so good. In fact, a writer who does not understand the elementary concepts of grammar has no credibility.

Was the sentence easy to understand? You probably found it quite confusing. In this book Verbs, one will learn how to determine correct subject-verb agreement and correct verb tenses.

 English Prepositions

Prepositions are words that link nouns, pronouns, and phrases to other words in a sentence.

Prepositions usually describe the position of something, the time when something happens, and the way in which something is done, although the prepositions "of," "to," and "for" have some separate functions.

Prepositions can sometimes be used to end sentences. For example, "What did you put that there for?"

A preposition precedes a noun (or a pronoun) to show the noun's (or the pronoun's) relationship to another word in the sentence.

Learn English Adjectives and Adverbs

Adjective – a word used to modify or describe a noun or pronoun.

Adverb – a word that is used to modify an adjective, verb, or adverb.

There are three forms of adjectives and adverbs used to show varying degrees of comparison: the positive, the comparative, and the superlative.

The positive form is used when there is no direct comparison being made to anything specific but is used to offer a broad or general comparison.

The comparative form is used when two things are being compared with each other.

The superlative form is used when more than two things are being compared with one another.

Regular forms for one and two-syllable words.

positive – no change (big, strong, long, etc.)

comparative – words ending in "er" (bigger, stronger, longer, etc.)

superlative – words end in "est" (biggest, strongest, longest, etc.)

Regular forms for three or more syllable words.

positive – no change (understandable, comfortable, etc.)

comparative – use "more" (more understandable, more comfortable, etc.)

superlative – use "most" (most understandable, most comfortable, etc.)

Adverbs that end in "ly" always use "more" or "most", such as "more quickly" or "most quickly"..

Remember that these are general rules and many adjectives and adverbs have irregular forms.

Have a go and see how you do!

Learn English Conjunctions and Interjections

Conjunctions

A conjunction is a word that “joins”.  It joins two parts of a sentence together.  There are two important ways to categorize conjunctions by their relationship and form.

First, we will look at the relationships of conjunctions.  There are both coordinating conjunctions and subordinating conjunctions in English.  Coordinating conjunctions are used to show that the elements being joined together by the conjunction are similar in importance and structure. 

Interjections

Hey!  <– That is an interjection.

“Interjection” is a big name for what are often little words. Interjections are short exclamations like Hi, Oh!, or Ah.  They do not have real grammatical value in most sentences, but we use them often in English, usually when speaking, but also sometimes in writing. When interjections are put into a sentence, the interjection has no grammatical connection to the sentence.  It is important to note an interjection is sometimes followed by an exclamation mark (!) when it is written.