A Simple Grammar Summary

Leonie Overbeek
 Introduction

Second language learners have to develop an understanding of the grammar of

English, however, there are many complicated grammar constructions and linguistics that

they do not need to know.

These are the simplest and most essential grammatical functions that will provide a

basis for understanding English texts and conversations.

Parts of Speech

Nouns – names

Proper nouns – names of things, places and people. Always written with a capital

letter. John, Jane, Sofia, Cape Town, Table Mountain, Black Sea, China, Yellow River,

White House.

Common nouns – objects. The things we can see and touch. No capitals unless at the

start of a sentence. Pen, paper, apple, cup.

Abstract nouns – ideas. The thing we can’t see but can feel as emotions or think of,

also not capitalized unless at the start of a sentence. Love, hate, anger, patriotism, economy.

Collective nouns – used for groups of things. People, animals, plants, vehicles.

Compound nouns – nouns that are joined together to form a new word. Pocket and

book = pocketbook, draw and bridge = drawbridge.

Pronouns – used in the place of nouns in a sentence to make it easier to read or hear,

and to avoid using the same noun again and again.

Personal pronouns are of two types – subjective (the active agent in a sentence is the

subject of that sentence) and objective (the thing or person who receives the activity).

The boy (subject) kicks the ball (object).

 Subjective Objective
Single Plural Single Plural
I We Me Us
You You You You
He/she/it They Him/her/it Them
Possessive Adjectives (possession)
Mine Ours Mine Our
Yours Yours Your Your
His/her/its Theirs His/her/its Their
Reflexive Demonstrative Adjective
Myself Ourselves This/these This/these
Yourself Yourselves That/those That/those
Himself/herself/itself Themselves

Adjectives

These words describe nouns, either by state or by quality, and are used to compare

things with each other (comparative) or with a whole class (Superlative). The rules to change

an adjective into a comparative or superlative are shown below.

Adjective (word in Comparative Superlative

dictionary)
Single syllable, ending in Word + er Word +est
double consonant
Single or double syllable, Word changes to take Word changes to take
ending in single consonant double consonant + er double consonant + est
Three or more syllables More + word Most + word

For example:

Long – longer – longest

Big – bigger – biggest

Delicious – more delicious – most delicious

There are some irregular adjectives:

Good – better – best

 Bad – worse – worst

Little – less – least

Far – farther/further – farthest/furthest

Articles

These words indicate whether a noun is a single (one) or plural (more than one) and a

general, indefinite thing or a specific, definite thing.

The indefinite article is a/an for a single thing (singular), some/any for more than one

(plural), and indicates a general thing that falls into a certain category, for example trains. An

is used when the noun starts with a vowel, eg. An egg.

Example: Did a train come through here recently? Are there any trains running today?

There are some steam trains!

The definite article is the for both singular and plural, when there is a specific thing

we refer to, one or more items that are defined.

Example: Did the train to Sofia come through here? Are the trains running today?

There are the steam trains!

Take Note: When have referred in a sentence to a noun using the indefinite article,

any following mention of that noun has to be preceded by the definite article.

Examples: Could you give me a knife, please? Thanks, that’s just the knife I needed.

I got on a train in Varna to go to Shumen, and five hours later I was still on the train.

Some cars are just ridiculously expensive these days, just look at the new Mercedes

sedans.

Prepositions

Words that describe where one noun is relative to another noun – literally the position

of one noun relative to another noun. We cannot have a sentence like this in English: The cat

sat the mat. Instead, we have to indicate the relation between the cat and the mat – in this
case, the cat sat on the mat, not the mat on the cat. English has nearly two hundred

prepositions, but the ones used most often are in, on, at, for, to, of, over, under, up, down. To

find a complete list of prepositions and their uses, use this website:

https://owl.purdue.edu/owl/general_writing/grammar/prepositions/index.html

Time – at (precise time), on (dates, days, months), in (years, centuries)

I met you at 9:30, on the 3rd of March, in the year 1987.

Place – at (precise place), on (surface or area), in (enclosed spaces or cities)

Let’s meet at the bench, in the park, on the bank of the river.

Introducing objects of verbs – for (call, wait, watch, wish, hope), of (dream, think,

approve, smell, consist), at (glance, laugh, look, smile, stare)

I will call for you Saturday night. (I will come to your house on Saturday night to take

you out for a meeting).

I hope for a favourable outcome.

I dream of you.

She smiled at me.

Verbs

These are the action words, words that describe what is happening. They do many

jobs in English: they tell you what the action is and when it happened. They also tell you,

through passive voice, that we don’t know who did the action. They also, as modal verbs,

show the meaning and intentions behind the actions.

There are two types of verbs, regular and irregular. Regular verbs follow rules to be

turned from present tense (now) to past tense (yesterday, last week, long ago). Irregular verbs

have no rules, just usage and have to memorized. All verbs have a present form (how the

word is written in the dictionary) also called the infinitive (to be, to run, to see), a past form

and past participle form.

 Eg: run – ran – run, walk – walked – walked, see – saw – seen

The special case of the third person singular pronouns and verbs: When we use he,

she or it, verbs get an s, es or ies added to them in the present tense. She cooks, it shies, he

loves.

Auxiliary Verbs

These three verbs are used for a variety of reasons in English and appear in almost all

grammatical structures.

To be (be) – this indicates existence that can be touched, seen or felt in some way by

the senses or the mind.

It is the one verb in English that is conjugated (changes when it is used with a

personal pronoun):

I am (present) was (past)

You are (present) were (past)

He/she/it is (present) was (past)

It also changes when more than one person is involved.

We are (present) were (past)

You are (present) were (past)

They are (present) were (past)

To do (do) – indicates a general action of any kind and can serve in the place of any

verb. It is used to form questions about actions or to change a sentence from positive to

negative if there is no other auxiliary verb in the sentence:

I do nothing all day.

I don’t do nothing all day.

What did you do yesterday? I did some chores.

Have you done your homework? I did my homework.

 I like ice-cream. Oh yuck, I don’t like ice-cream.

To have (have) – this verb indicates possession of something, either an object or a

characteristic or an idea; it is also used to indicate effect on someone or something. It is used

to create to the perfect tenses, the tenses that are used to talk about things that happened in

the past and still have an impact in the present. It is also used to create what is called the

passive voice, where a sentence is made with no subject in it.

The Tense Wheel

To better understand the eight basic tenses, use this tense wheel to help you.
 To use this wheel, write down a verb in the center box. Then follow the rules to fill in

the boxes around the rim. See the example on the next page. Once you have finished, use the

verb as modified in sentences.

 learn/s

had is/am/are
been learning
learning

had learn learned

learned

has/have was/were
been learning
learning

has/have
learned

He learns about tigers in school.

I am learning about tigers at the zoo.
We learned about tigers last week.
They were learning about tigers last year.
My friend has learned about tigers from books.
People have been learning about tigers for many years.
He had learned about tigers but forgot.
She had been learning about tigers but stopped.
 Adverbs

Just like adjectives describe nouns (red book, biggest building), adverbs describe the

verb. It describes how the action is done. For example: He ran slowly. They read quietly.

Adverbs can be made from other words by adding the suffix -ly: slow – slowly, or they can

be words like soon, never or sometimes. Adverbs can also describe other adverbs or even

adjectives, and usually describe place, time, quality, positive or negative attributes. Reading

helps you to identify adverbs and use them.

Modal Auxiliary Verbs

These verbs do not change with the tenses as they have their own tense, they are

always used with the infinitive form of another verb, and give meaning as to the emotion or

mood or decision of a verb.

The verbs are: will – would; can – could; shall – should; may – might. There are also

two verbs that are always used in just one form: ought to and must.

Verb Meaning Example Sentence

will intention I will buy milk, coffee and sugar. (definite
actions)
would conditional She would go to the movies if she had time. (not
definite)
can ability They can walk to the store. (able to do it)
could conditional They could walk to the store if it wasn’t raining.
shall intention He shall drive me to the airport. (the plan is)
should obligation He should drive me to the airport. (he has no
choice)
may possibility/permission We may travel to Greece next year. (maybe we
will). You may have another cookie. (take
another one)
might vague possibility I might visit Estonia one day in the future. (it
could happen)
ought to obligation We ought to care for each other. (the right thing
to do)
must imperative You must listen to me! (command)

Modal verbs can also be used to make questions, especially will, would, can and

could and make negative sentences.

 Will you help me? I won’t, sorry.

Can I go into the building? No, you can’t.

Future Tense or Aspect

English does not have a specific format for the verbs to express the future. Instead, it

uses the other tenses and the addition of a time phrase to indicate events in the future.

will be + verb (past tense): this expresses a fact that has been set for a future date

Example: The party will be held at eight o’clock tonight.

will + infinitive verb: this expresses a future intention (strong desire to do it)

Example: I will bake a cake.

present continuous tense + time: this expresses future plans

Example: We are going to the beach for three weeks.

present simple tense + time: this is for scheduled events such as public transport, sport

matches etc.

Example: The bus for New York leaves at 7 p.m. every night

will be + verb + ing: this expresses a very firm intention for the future

We will be going to Busan for our holidays.

Conjunctions

These are short words that put two parts of a sentence together to show the

relationship between the two parts.

And – part one of the sentence must be added to part two of the sentence to be

complete, or things in a list are all added together: My brother and I were born on the same

day, and so were my mom and dad.

But – there is a fact you should know to make sense of the whole sentence: My

brother and I were born on the same day, and so were my mom and dad, but not in the same

year.
 If – means that one part can only be true when the other part is also true, or one thing

can only happen when another thing also happens: My brother and I would be twins if we

were born on the same day in the same year.

Making sentences by using the grammar and parts of speech

Active and Passive Voice

An active sentence has the subject, an action, and the object of the action. For

example: I (subject) drive (action) a car (object of the action). However, if I am in an accident

with my car, and I drive away from the accident without stopping, and the police ask the

people who saw the accident, they won’t know that it was me who drove the car. So, they can

only use the action and the object in a sentence.

Example: The car (object) was driven (action) very fast.

We use the passive voice in two ways – when we don’t know who did the action

(subject) or when it is not important who did the action. Below you can see how active tenses

are changed to passive tenses. We also see the passive voice used in business contracts and

legal documents, or in very formal writing such as science or news reports.

Tense Sentence
Present Simple The boy catches the ball.
Active
Present Simple The ball is caught.
Passive
Grammar structure (to be in correct present tense for the object/s) + past participle
Past Simple Active The boy caught the ball.
Past Simple Passive The ball was caught.
Grammar structure (to be in correct past tense for the object/s) + past participle
Present Perfect The boy has caught the ball.
Simple Active
Present Perfect The ball has been caught.
Simple Passive
Grammar Structure has/have (depending on objects) been + past participle
Past Perfect Simple The boy had caught the ball.
Active
Past Perfect Simple The ball had been caught.
Passive
Grammar Structure had been + past participle
 Present Continuous They are catching the balls.
Active
Present Continuous The balls are being caught.
Passive
Grammar Structure (to be in the correct present tense for the object/s) + being + past
participle
Past Continuous They were catching the balls.
Active
Past Continuous The balls were being caught.
Passive
Grammar Structure (to be in the correct present tense for the object/s) + being + past
participle

Since the grammatical structure of the present perfect continuous and past perfect

continuous are seldom used even in active form, and never in passive form, they are not

discussed or shown here. Remember that the verb must take the correct version for the object

– if only one object, singular verbs, if more than one object, plural verbs.

A final note: there are transitive and intransitive verbs. Intransitive verbs do not have

an object. Examples are: cry, grow, listen, float. You can look up more examples in

dictionaries. So, a sentence like: She cried loudly all night. Night is not the object of the

action, crying. We cannot make a sentence such as: Night was cried loudly.

Conditional Sentences

These are sentences where we use the word if to show that there is a condition that

must happen. In other words, no-one has actively done something, like bake a cake, instead

we are talking about what needs to happen every time someone wants to bake a cake and

have it perfect.

Condition level Sentence and grammar structure

zero: a fact if verb present simple verb present simple
If you mix blue and red you get purple.
first: if verb present simple modal + infinitive
possible/probable
If you drive too fast you may crash the
car.
second: possible if verb past simple modal + infinitive
If you drank too much you might have a
hangover.
 There is a third conditional which is used to talk about regrets for past actions not

taken, and its structure is: if + verb past perfect + modal + have + past participle.

Example: If I had trained harder I would have gone to the Olympic Games.

Reported Speech

When we write down what people said using their exact words, or, if we want to write

a story and have people shown talking to each other (dialogue) we use a particular way of

writing.

When we quote someone, we use this format:

“I live in Busan,” said Mr. Park.

Reported speech changes that sentence like this:

Mr. Park said that he lived in Busan.

“I enjoy watching movies.” says Minju.

Minju says she enjoys watching movies.

Punctuation

A sentence must always start with a capital letter, and end with a full stop.

Capital letters are A,B,C,D,E and so on.

Lowercase letters are a,b,c,d,e and so on.

Punctuation mark names:

, comma

; semi-colon

: colon

‘ single quotation mark

“ double quotation mark

- dash

! exclamation mark
? question mark

A question must end with a question mark. Why are you going there?

An exclamation ends with an exclamation mark. Watch out for the sharks!

Other sentences end with a full stop.

Commas separate items in a list. I bought an apple, a banana, two pears, and some

grapes.

A semi-colon separates two parts of a sentence that are linked by words such as

however; however you should think of the fact that the general meaning of each

sentence (clause) should be fairly similar.

A colon separates the main idea from information that supports it: for example, a list,

a series of statements or simply some exposition.

Quotation marks enclose direct speech, such as: Mary said, “I have had a headache all

day and John simply said ‘Take some time out.’, as if I had that luxury.” Note that

when direct speech is reported within direct speech, the second takes a single instead

of a double mark.