English Grammar: Quick reference guide

This English Grammar Reference Guide helps you quickly understand important grammar concepts, and is a good place to revise important topics related to English Grammar. Here are some more Learn English resources.

Noun: A naming word (name of thing, place, animal, etc) is called a noun. Example: The rose is a beautiful flower. Here, the nouns are rose and flower. Read more on nouns here.

Pronoun
A word that is used instead of a noun is called a pronoun. sometimes instead of using the same noun over and over again, another word is used instead of the noun. This is done to make the sentence simpler.
Example:
a. Rajat is a good boy. Rajat does his homework every day.
b. Rajat is a good boy. He does his homework every day.
Not how the pronoun ‘he’ has replaced the noun Rajat.

More example of pronouns: I, we, you, he, she, it, they, me, us, him, her, them, my, mine, his.

Adjectives
A describing word is known as an adjective. Such a word describes or tells you more about a person, place or thing. Since the name of a person, place or thing is known as a noun, we can say that an adjective describes a noun.
Example: The cruel giant lived in a big castle by the sea.
Adjectives: cruel, big
More example of adjectives: tiny, cunning, heavy, brave, naughty, golden, ripe, soft, curly, strong, green, fast

Verbs
Doing verbs are known as verbs. A doing word tell us what somebody or something does.
Example: Jack ran down the hills
Verbs: ran
More example of verbs: rowed, cried, saw, gave, answered, rang, ran, loves, jumped, go

Adverbs
Words that tell us something more about verbs are called adverbs.
Example: How did the the giant laugh? the giant laughed loudly
Adverbs: loudly
Example: How did Aman run? Aman ran fast
Adverbs: fast

A, An, The (Using articles)
“A”, “An” and “The” are called articles, here’s how to use them.

• A is used with consonant sounds, it comes before words that do not begin with a vowel.
• An is used with vowel sounds, it comes before words that begin with a vowel – that is a, e, i, o, u
• The is used with things that are one of their kind.

Examples:
There is a vase on the table
We saw an Ostrich at the zoo
Ben ate a slice of bread and an egg which was boiled

How and when to use ‘the’.

Look at these two sentences.
a. Look for an empty packet
b. Out the book in the empty packet
In the first sentence, an empty packet does not refer to a particular empty packet; it means any empty packet. But in the second sentence, the book refers to a particular book and the empty packet refers to a particular empty packet that is lying there.
So ‘the’ is used when you want to refer to a particular thing.

More example of using ‘the’
We took a left from the school to reach the zoo.

This, That, These, Those
This is used for a person, place or thing that is near us.
That is used for a person, place or thing that is far from us.
These: Same as This but used for more than one.
Those: Same as That but used for more than one.

Examples

• This is my pencil
• These are my crayons.
• That is my cycle.
• Those are my friends.

Have/Has
We use has for one person or animal
We use have for more than one person or animal.
We also use have with I and you.

A tiger has sharp teeth
Elephants have huge trunks
Tom has a dog
Jack and Jill have a dog.
I have a dog.
You have a dog.

Prepositions
The words between, in, on, above all tell you where a person or thing is. words like these are called prepositions.

The words In , On, Under and Near are used as prepositions showing the position of the object/person with respect to another object/person.
For example, put a pencil in various positions and make sentences to inform where is the pencil.

• The pencil is in the drawer.
• The pencil is on the table.
• The pencil is under the desk.
• The pencil is near the duster.

Conjunctions
Conjunctions are joining words, used to join two sentences. The joining words ‘and’ and ‘but’ are commonly used as conjunctions.
Example:
Shaan tasted the soup. He liked it
Shaan tasted the soup and he liked it.

Rohan dropped the glass. It did not break.
Rohan dropped the glass but it did not break

We usually use ‘but’ when we want to connect two ideas that are different from each other. The word ‘but’ is used when the second sentence says/does something that is not what we would expect after reading the first one. In the above example we expect glass to break when it is dropped, However, in this case the glass did not break.So, the joining word but has been used to tell that even though Rohan dropped the glass, the glass did not break.

Types of Sentences
A sentence is a group of words that tells you something or asks a question. A sentence starts with a capital letter. A sentence ends with an end mark (A full stop, question mark and an exclamation mark are end marks).

• Some sentences ask us something; they end with a question mark.
• Some sentences show feelings like being excited, happy or surprised; they end with an exclamation mark.
  Example: We won!
• Some sentences tell us something; they end with a full stop.

Capital Letters & Punctuation

• The names of towns, cities, countries, continents, like all proper nouns, begins with capital letters followed by small letters.
• A sentence always begins with a capital letter and ends with a full stop or question mark.
• When you ask a question, you end the sentence with a question mark and now a full stop.

Silent Letters

Say aloud the words honest, knee and wrong. When we say them aloud, we say onest, nee and rong respectively. We do not pronounce the h, k and w sounds in these words. These letters are silent.

Tenses in English Grammar

In English Grammar, Tenses can be divided into three parts: Present Tense, Past Tense,  Future Tense. Each of these tenses can further be divided into further subparts.

Read more on tenses here.

Direct Speech vs Indirect Speech

Direct Speech

When something is being repeated exactly as it was, we may quote his actual words. Usually in between a pair of inverted (“ ”) commas.
Eg – He said, “I am busy now”.

Indirect Speech

When we report what a person says without quoting his/her exact words and omit the use of inverted commas. We always answer the reported speech in the past tense. In indirect speech we use ‘that’ instead of using inverted commas.

Eg – He said, “I am busy now”.
Eg – He said that he was busy then.

Important point to remember while changing from Indirect to Direct speech

• The actual words of the speaker are put within Inverted commas.
• The first word of the Reported Speech (actual words of the speaker) begins with a Capital letter.
• The Reported Speech is separated by a comma from the Reported Verb.

Important point to remember while changing from Direct speech to Indirect Speech

• Inverted commas are not used; but the Reported Speech is generally introduced by the conjunction, ‘that’.
• The comma separating the Reported Verb from the Reported Speech is removed.
• The tense of the Reporting Verb is never changed
• The Question mark (?) and the Mark of Exclamation (!) are not used.
• Interrogative, Imperative and Exclamatory sentences are put as statements.

Change of Tenses from Direct to Indirect Speech

Rule 1. If the Reporting Verb is in the Present or Future tense, the tense of the Verb in the Reported Speech is not changed at all.
Eg – He says, “I am ready.”
He says that he is ready
Eg – He will say, “I am ready”.
He will say that he is ready.

Rule 2. If the Reporting Verb is in the Past tense, the tense of the Verb in the Reported Speech is changed into one of the forms of the Past tense.

i) Simple Present becomes Simple Past
eg – He said, “I write a letter.”
He said that he wrote a letter.

ii) Present continuous becomes Past continuous
eg – He said, “I am writing a letter.”
He said that he was writing a letter.”

iii) Present Perfect becomes Past Perfect
eg – He said, “I have written a letter”.
He said that he had written a letter.

iv) Simple Past becomes Past Perfect

v) Past Continuous becomes Past Perfect Continuous

vi) Past Perfect and Past Perfect Continuous remains unchanged.

vii) Will changes into would, Shall into should or would, Can into could, May into might

Rule 3. If the Reported Speech express some universal truth or habitual action, the tense of the Verb in the Reported Speech is not changed into the corresponding past, but remains exactly as it is;

Universal truth
Eg – He said, “Two and three makes five”.
He said that two and three makes five.

Habitual Action
Eg – He said, “I go to temple every Tuesday”.
He said that he goes to temple every Tuesday.

Note: When the Reporting Verb ‘say’ takes an indirect object it is changed into ‘tell’ in the Indirect Speech.
Eg – “We shall go home,” he said to me.
He told me that they would go home.

Rule 4. In the Reported Speech, the words expressing nearness of time or place are changed into words showing distance.
Eg – He said, “It is raining now”.
He said that it was raining then.

Note: If this, now, here, etc refer to the same object, time or place that is present to the speaker while speaking, then no change is made in the adjective or adverb in the Indirect Speech, as,

Eg – He said, “I will do it now or never.”
He said that he would do it now or never.
Eg – She said, “My book is here.”
She said that her book was here.
Eg – “This is the house I like,” he said.
He said that this was the house he liked.

Rule 5. The Noun and Pronoun in Vocative Case are turned into objects in the Indirect Speech.

Eg – The teacher said, “Arun, you should try harder.”
The teacher told Arun that he should try harder.

If the person addressed reports the speech, the Second Person is changed to First.

Eg – He said to me, “You are a clever boy.”
He told me that I was a clever boy.

If the pronoun he or she stands for different persons, the names of the persons referred to are inserted in brackets after the pronouns. Besides, Nouns could be used instead of Pronouns whenever possible.

Eg – Arun said to Amit, “I want your pen.”
Arun told amit that he (Arun) wanted his (Amit’s) pen.

Homographs, Homophones, & Homonyms

Homographs, Homophones, & Homonyms: Understand the Differences