
Improving Your Grammar Skills
English language teacher Kiera Ayres suggests focusing on the grammar you see and hear used in everyday communication with native English speakers, like when watching the news or reading a book. Some other great tips include:
Learn the parts of speech and how they function in sentences. Understand the three points of view: first-person, second-person, and third-person.
Learn the proper structure of a sentence: subject-verb-object.
Conjugate verbs and punctuate sentences properly.
Read books to understand basic words, spelling, and sentence structure .
Play grammar games online to test your skills and learn from your mistakes. Practice writing every day and focus on improving any problem areas.
Learning the Basics of Grammar
1Know the parts of speech. These are the types of words that make up the language, and they are nouns, adjectives, pronouns, verbs, adverbs, prepositions, conjunctions, interjections, and sometimes articles.[1] To put sentences together properly, you must understand what the parts of speech are and how they function in sentences.- Nouns are the elements that usually perform the action in a sentence, such as a person, place, thing, idea, emotion, animal, or event. Nouns include Sally, Paris, sand , philosophy , happiness, dog, and birthday.
- Adjectives modify nouns and describe aspects or characteristics of nouns. Adjectives include red, funny, lazy, large, and short.
- Pronouns take the place of nouns. There are personal subject pronouns (such as I, she, and they), personal object pronouns (such as us, you, it, and them), personal possessive pronouns (such as mine, yours, his, hers, and theirs), and relative pronouns (such as who, which, that, and whose).
- Verbs indicate actions or states of being and tell what the noun is doing. Verbs include run, sing, type, be, and walk.
- Adverbs modify verbs, adjectives, conjunctions, prepositions, and other adverbs. They are words like quickly, well, and slowly. These words often end in –ly.
- Prepositions indicate relationships in time, space, or direction. Prepositions include to, in, on, over, of, and across.
- Conjunctions join nouns, clauses, phrases, and sentences. Coordinating conjunctions link independent clauses, and they are for, and, nor, but, or, yet, and so (remember FANBOYS). Subordinating conjunctions link dependent clauses, and they include because, if, since, while, and although.
- Interjections are words that indicate emotions. These include oh, hey, ouch, and wow. They are often followed by exclamation points.
- Articles are used to modify and define nouns. The is a definite article, and a and an are the indefinite articles.
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