Basic English

• This book is organised as student handout learning materials of Basic English Grammar
• Competency of this level is that students are able to use the following sentence structure patterns containing grammatical forms covered in this term such as English Verbs, Nouns, Adjectives, Adverbs, Pronouns, Prepositions, Articles, Conjunctions, Interjections, and Verbals
• Using this handout, the students are guided to understand English Grammar through structural discussion and related quizzes
• The compiler realizes that the handout is far from being perfect so that constructive suggestions are welcome
• English Verbs
• English Nouns
• English Adjectives
• English Adverbs
• English Pronouns
• English Prepositions
• English Articles
• English Conjunctions
• English Interjections
• English Verbals
• Nouns


  A person, place or thing
• Examples of nouns


  • man
  • woman
  • teacher
  • John
  • Mary
  • home
  • office
  • town
  • countryside
  • America
  • table
  • car
  • banana
  • money
  • music
  • love
  • dog
  • monkey
• The simple definition of a noun is: a person, place or thing
• The problem with this definition is that it does not explain why "love" is a noun but can also be a verb
• Ways to recognise a noun


  • Ending
  • Position in sentence
  • Function in a sentence
• Noun endings that show a word is a noun


  • -ity
  • -ment
  • -ness
  • -ation
  • -hood
• The word endings of all nouns do not always show that a word is a noun, e.g. "spoonful" ends in -ful but "careful" also ends in -ful
• Nouns often come after a determiner


  • a
  • an
  • the
  • this
  • my
  • such
• Nouns often come after one or more adjectives


  • a great relief
  • a peaceful afternoon
  • the tall, Indian doctor
  • this difficult word
  • my brown and white house
  • such crass stupidity
• Functions of nouns in a sentence

  • Subject of verb
  • Object of verb
  • Subject and object of verb
• The subject or object of a sentence is not always a noun, it could be a pronoun or a phrase
• Countable nouns


  Things that can be counted
• Countable nouns can be singular or plural


  • My dog is playing
  • My dogs are hungry
• We can use a/an with countable nouns

  A dog is an animal
• When a countable noun is singular, we must use a word like a/the/my/this with it

  • I want an orange
  • Where is my bottle?
• When a countable noun is plural, we can use it alone


  • I like oranges
  • Bottles can break
• We can use some and any with countable nouns


  • I've got some dollars
  • Have you got any pens?
• We can use a few and many with countable nouns


  • I've got a few dollars
  • I haven't got many pens
• People is countable, it is the plural of person


  • There is one person here
  • There are three people here
• Uncountable nouns


  Substances, concepts etc that cannot be divided into separate elements and cannot be counted
• Uncountable nouns are usually treated as singular


  • This news is very important
  • Your luggage looks heavy
• We do not usually use a/an with uncountable nouns


  We cannot say "an information" or "a music"
• We can use a something of with uncountable nouns


  • a piece of news
  • a bottle of water
  • a grain of rice
• We can use some and any with uncountable nouns


  • I've got some money
  • Have you got any rice?
• We can use a little and much with uncountable nouns


  • I've got a little money
  • I haven't got much rice
• Uncountable nouns are also called "mass nouns"