Basics of English Grammar Topics for Beginners

Study the following important grammar topics for spoken English.

• Irregular Verbs
• Auxiliary Verbs – ‘Will/Would,’ ‘Shall/Should’
• Adverbs
• Prepositions – ‘On,’ ‘At,’ ‘In’
• Conjunctions – Coordinating and Correlative
• Count Nouns vs. Non-Count Nouns
• Action Verbs
• ‘Be’ Verbs
• Interjections
• Capitalization
• Comparative and Superlative Adjectives
• Auxiliary Verbs – ‘Can/Could,’ ‘May/Might/Must’
• Possessive Nouns
• Perfect Progressive Tense
• Prepositions – ‘With,’ ‘Over,’ ‘By’
• Gerunds
• Adjectives
• Infinitives
• Singular and Plural Nouns
• Articles – Indefinite and Definite
• Conjunctive Adverbs
• Indicative, Imperative, Subjunctive Mood
• Progressive and Perfect Tense
• Prepositions – ‘Of,’ ‘To,’ ‘For’
• Conjunctions – Subordinating
• Pronouns
• Active Voice and Passive Voice
• Auxiliary Verbs – ‘Be,’ ‘Do,’ ‘Have’
• Simple Tense

Basic Grammar Topics for Spoken English

Many people have difficulty speaking English fluently. The ability to read, write, or listen in English is
fundamentally distinct from the ability to speak the language. Fluency will be difficult for someone
who has good writing, reading, and listening skills but little speaking practice. The majority of English
learners have difficulty communicating because they place too much emphasis on grammar rules.
They get insecure and anxious as a result of this.
 As an English learner, you must devote sufficient time to gaining a thorough understanding of the
language. It entails working on grammar, vocabulary, idioms, and colloquialisms. Spoken English
entails far more than an academic understanding of the English language.

Sentence
Grammar study always starts with the study of sentences as the basic unit of meaningful human
expression. If you wish to communicate confidentially, you need to practice forming sentences
without any errors.

A sentence can be described as a group of words that makes complete sense whereas a phrase
doesn't convey a complete meaning, but is also regarded as a group of words.

A sentence is made up of a subject and a predicate.

Examples

• The man speaks English

• Those young women speak English in a stylish way
• The young man speaks English without any errors

Subject Predicate
The man speaks English
Those young women speak English in a stylish way
The young man speaks English without any errors

The subject names the person or thing we talk about. The predicate denotes what is said about the
subject.

Kinds of Sentence

There are four kinds of sentences in English. They are Declarative or Assertive sentences, Imperative
sentences, Interrogative sentences, and exclamatory sentences.

Declarative or Assertive Sentence

A sentence that asserts or declares something.

Examples

• She lives in America

• The Yamuna is a holy river
• Job loves hockey

Imperative Sentence

A sentence that expresses a wish, command, or request.

Examples

• Don't go there
• Lend me a helping hand
• May God be with you!

Interrogative sentence
A sentence that asks questions

Examples

• Did you attend school yesterday?

• Have you read the message??
• Why does he love her?

Exclamatory sentence

A sentence that conveys a strong and sudden feeling.

Examples

• What a wonderful event!

• What a pity!

Word Classes
According to the forms, position, function, and meanings, words can be classified into word classes.
Based on form and function, word classes are subdivided into form class words and function class
words. As per the forms and functions, words can be classified into eight parts of speech.

Form Class Words

Nouns, verbs, adjectives, and Adverbs are included in form classes.

Function Class Words

The function class words include pronouns, articles, auxiliary verbs, prepositions, and conjunction.

Nouns
A noun is a word that denotes a person, place, thing, or idea. Nouns are classified into two classes.
They are concrete and Abstract nouns.

Nouns that denote the names of persons, places, and things are called Concrete Nouns.

Examples

• Mayflower
• Calicut
• Ram
• River
• Mountain

Abstract nouns are nouns that denote ideas and concepts, states of qualities, mind, etc

Examples

• Virtue
• Truth
• Speech
• Sound
• Anger
• Happy
There are four kinds of concrete nouns

Proper Noun

• Chennai
• Delhi
• Tommy
• Australia

Common Noun

• Teacher
• Nurse
• Rose
• Mosquito
• Apple
• Book

Collective Nouns

• Audience
• Army
• Family
• Crowd
• Government

Material Nouns

• Iron
• Gold
• Silk
• Cloth
• Glass

Nouns are also divided into countable nouns and uncountable nouns.

A countable noun can occur as one or more in number. It can be preceded by a, an, or the

Examples

• a building
• a woman
• an apple
• an idea
• the song
• the city

Uncountable nouns can be used as plural and are considered in mass or quantity.

Examples

• Water
 • Smoke
• Grass
• Milk
• Steam
• Fun
• Foliage

Uncountable Nouns

• Advice
• Furniture
• Information
• Luck
• Research
• Work
• News

Countable Nouns

• a piece of advice
• a piece of information
• a piece of luggage
• a stroke luck
• a poem
• a job
• a piece of work

Singular and Plural Nouns

There are many ways by which we can turn singular into plural nouns. The basic rules are as follows,

Most nouns form their plural by the addition of -s or -es

Examples

• Cooks, tips, prices, keys, ages, deaths

Nouns ending in letters sh, ss,s,x and ch form their plurals by adding -es

• Brushes, kisses, benches, buses

Nouns that end in the letter y preceded by a consonant form plurals by substituting -ies for y

• Flies, babies, cities, ladies

Some nouns which end in the letter o form their plurals by adding -s or -es

• Cargo- cargoes
• Mango- mangoes

Nouns ending in f or fe have -ves in their plurals

 • Calves, thieves, wives

In most cases, plurals are formed by an internal vowel change.

Examples

• Man- men
• Mouse- mice
• Louse- lice
• Foot- feet

Some nouns have the same form singular and plural form.

Examples

• Sheep
• Series
• Chinese
• Deer
• Jargon

There are nouns with no singular form but exist only in the plural

Examples

• Cattle
• Arms
• Odds
• Premises
• People

Pronoun
A pronoun is a word used instead of a noun. There are nine kinds of pronouns in English. It is based
on the function and meaning of the word.

PERSONAL PRONOUNS

The three forms of the personal pronoun are given below.

Personal Pronoun Singular Plural

First Person I We
Second Person You You
Third Person
• Masculine Gender He
• Feminine Gender She They
• Feminine Gender
• Common Gender It
Examples

• Mohan says that he has lost his umbrella.

• My cousins say that they are going for a walk
• Neither he nor I know the rules
• It is raining

Reflexive Pronoun

The reflexive Pronoun is formed by adding -self in the singular number and -selves in the plural
number.

Examples

• I corrected myself
• He hurt himself
• They enjoyed themselves
• He kept the secret to himself

Emphatic Pronoun

When the -self and -selves form are used for emphasis.

Examples

• The Governor himself addressed the gathering

• The boy himself broke the chain
• The lady herself killed it

Interrogative Pronoun

They are used for posing questions

Examples

• Who is your Maths teacher?

• What do you do for a living?
• Who made this soup?

Distributive Pronoun

Each, neither, and neither are the distributive pronoun in English.

Examples

• Neither of them is lazy

• Either of them will be placed
• Each of you will get the punishment

Reciprocal Pronouns

Each other and one another are called reciprocal pronouns as they skillfully show a mutual
relationship.
Examples

• We should stand for one another

• We should help each other.
• The two young boys like each other very much

Indefinite Pronouns

The pronoun is used in a general sense without a particular reference.

Examples

• Everyone was invited to the party

• Something must be wrapped up
• One must be careful in money-related matters

Demonstrative Pronouns

Pronouns are used to point out things or persons.

• This garden belongs to my uncle.

• These books must be given to my class teacher.

Relative Pronoun

The pronoun that refers to a noun that goes before it

• My father who is an ex-serviceman is now at home.

• Get me the book that I mentioned to you yesterday
• The dish which you have enjoyed was cooked by my cousin

Articles
There are only two types of articles in English. They are the definite article (the) and the indefinite
article(a/an)

The as a definite article is used to denote and define a particular person or thing

• The yellow-painted table is a special one.

• The water in the well is safe.
• The tiger is a dangerous animal
• The Indian Express
• The United States
• The Mahabharata
• The sun
• The Moon
• The Universe
• The politician
• The Nile

Indefinite Article

The indefinite article doesn't point out anything in particular

• I saw a woman in the garden.

 • A room
• A flower
• An egg
• An honest man

Adjectives
Adjectives are words that add meaning to a noun. It is also regarded as something which qualifies as
a noun.

Examples

• Victorian building
• Honest worker
• Broken window
• Worried look

Adverb
Adds more information about how an action is performed. It modifies a verb.

• The old lady walks slowly

• Megha is a very efficient young girl.
• They will come early today
• Sita is rarely angry
• She seldom sings a song

Degree of comparison

Positive, comparative, and superlative are the three degrees of comparison.

Verbs
The verb denotes the action in the sentence.

Examples

• Manu sits alone

• He opened the door
• They have changed a lot

Regular and Irregular verbs

A regular verb can be turned into past tense and the past participle by adding -ed or -d

• Walked
• Smiled
• Killed
• Hissed
• Received
• Believed

An irregular verb forms its past tense and past participle in an altogether new form without adding -
d or -ed.
 • Bear-bore-borne
• Choose-chose-chosen
• Hold-held-held
• Build-built-built
• Sweep-swept-swept
• Weave-wove-woven

Tenses
Tenses can express the time of the action. The tenses of time can be present, past and future.

A verb that denotes present time is the present tense.

Tense Form Example

Simple Write/writes
Present Continuous Is/am/are writing
Perfect Has/have writing
Perfect Continuous Has/have been writing
Past Simple wrote
Continuous Was/were writing
Perfect Had written
Perfect Continuous Had been writing
Future Simple Shall/will write
Continuous Shall/will be writing
Perfect Shall/will have written
Perfect Continuous Shall/will have been writing

The girl sings

A verb that denotes past time is in the past tense.

The girl sang

A verb that denotes future time is in the future tense.

The girl will sing

The simple Present Tense

It is used to show a permanent truth, habitual action, or present action.

Examples

• She goes for a walk every day

• I go to Mumbai by flight today
• Wait a bit
• The sun rises in the east
• He dances

Present Continuous Tense

It is used to show an action that is going on at the time of the speech. A future action especially in
spoken English.
Examples

• He is waiting
• They are listening
• We are going there tomorrow
• She is writing another poem

Present Perfect Tense

It is used to show an action that is just completed or a past action when we think of its effect in the
present tense. It is also used to denote an action that began in the past and continues til the time of
speaking.

Examples

• I have finished the assigned work.

• They have just finished the dance practice.
• We have lived in this city for many years

Present Perfect Continuous Tense

It is used to show an action that began in the past and is continuing.

Examples

• Rema has been studying since four o'clock

• They have been working here since 2004
• He has been watching t v since morning

Simple Past Tense

It is used to express an action completed in the past or to mention a habitual action in the past

Examples

• He took my cards yesterday

• I got the notice day before yesterday
• He finished his tasks
• He took exercises regularly

Past Continuous Tense

It is used to show an action going on sometime in the past.

Examples

• He was working hard while his friends were idle

• He was playing all the evening
• He was writing stories

Past Perfect Tense

It is used to describe an action that is completed at some point in the post before some other action

began.
Examples

• I had played football yesterday

• I had finished my tasks when he came
• She had played football on the team

Past Perfect Continuous Tense

It is used to show an action that began before a certain point in the past and continued up to that
time.

Examples

• He had been waiting there for three days

• He had been playing football
• She had been working in that office until she got placed somewhere

Future Tense

The simple future tense has four forms. They are simple future, future continuous, future perfect,
and future perfect continuous tense.

Simple Future

It denotes an action or event which is still to take place.

Examples

• I shall tell him the best news

• We shall tell him the truth
• He will return tomorrow

Future Continuous Tense

It denotes an action as going on at some time in the future

Examples

• I shall be visiting her tomorrow

• I will be playing in the evening
• She will be waiting until night

Future Perfect Tense

• It is used to show an action that will be completed in a certain future time.

• We shall have finished the work before November this year
• He will have left the place when you reach home

Future Perfect Continuous Tense

It is used to show an action that is in progress and which will continue until a certain point in time in
the future.

Examples

• When the college closes for this summer vacation Rekha will have been working for six years
 • By next year I shall be working here for five years

Below discussed are some of the rules that a learner should pay attention to while practicing
speaking.

• Tense should be used correctly. Tenses are based on verbs and indicate time or the
continuity of a process or action concerning the speaking.
• There are four types of tenses: simple, perfect, continuous, and perfect continuous. Each of
these three categories, namely present, past, and future, has its own set of characteristics.
• We commonly use all of these in conversation, but it is critical to choose the correct Tense
while speaking so that the sentence does not become difficult to express or understand.
• Be aware of the patterns of using regular and irregular verbs. Conjugation in regular verbs
follows a predictable pattern, whereas conjugation in irregular verbs does not.
• The past and past participle forms of the present form determine whether a verb is regular
or irregular.
• Always use an appropriate preposition. A preposition is a word that goes before a noun,
pronoun, or noun-equivalent to connect it to another term in the phrase.
• The noun, pronoun, or noun-equivalent is referred to as the object. When speaking, it is
critical to utilize the correct preposition.
• Follow the rules of subject-verb agreement.
• Adjectives are words that describe or qualify a noun or pronoun. Different terminology is
frequently employed to describe an object or a subject in particular when speaking of them.
When making a conversation, it is critical to employ the correct adjectives.
• When speaking or writing, appropriate conjunctions must be used to combine sentences,
words, or even clauses.
• Conjunctions serve two purposes: 1) Coordinating and 2) subordinating. These are used to
connect the main and subordinate clauses, as well as to denote the clauses. Effect, purpose,
manner, degree of comparison, condition, contrast, apposition, and concession are all
indicated by these terms.
• Basic grammar is required, but focusing just on grammar will hinder you from speaking
English fluently in a reasonable amount of time.
• Grammar is the most effective way to improve communication and writing skills, but this is
only true for people who have a strong foundation in English.