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Used with adjectives:
«He likes to use big words around adults.«
(big, fancy, long, difficult, hard)
«Her children use polite words.«
(polite, nice, kind, friendly)
«He says mean words to his brother.«
(mean, unkind, hurtful, harsh)
«The teacher uses simple words in class.«
(simple, easy, everyday, basic)
«What were his exact words?«
(exact, precise)
«He memorized some key words for his speech.«
(key)
«Find the wrong word in the sentence.«
(wrong, incorrect, misspelled, right, correct)
«He learned bad words from his friend.«
(bad, curse, cuss, dirty, naughty, obscene, foul, profane, slang)
«I’ll let you in if you say the magic word.«
(magic, code)
«He always has to have the final word during arguments.«
(final, last)
«Thank you for your encouraging words.«
(encouraging, comforting, soothing, wise)
«Your words are meaningless to me.«
(meaningless, empty, discouraging)
«She had a quick word with her son and he didn’t misbehave again.«
(quick, quiet, firm, stern)
«What is another word for car?«
(another, a substitute)
Used with verbs:
«Can I have a word with you?«
(have)
«She uses a lot of big words to impress people.«
(uses, says)
«Do not mention any word of this to him.«
(mention, say, speak)
«How do you pronounce this word?«
(pronounce, say, spell)
«He often misuses that word.«
(misuses, mispronounces, misspells)
«I do not speak a word of Chinese.«
(speak, know, understand)
«Look up the word in the dictionary.«
(Look up, find)
«Choose your words carefully with sensitive people.«
(choose, pick, select)
«Please translate these words for me.«
(translate)
«What does this word mean?«
(mean, indicate, signify)
«Words cannot express how thankful I am.«
(express, describe)
«The word begins with the letter b.«
(begins with, starts with)
«Please repeat the word.«
(repeat)
«She whispered the secret word in my ear.«
(whispered, said)
«He typed the words on a piece of paper.«
(typed, wrote)
«I could not read a word of it.«
(read, hear)
«He erased the bad word.«
(erased, deleted, crossed out)
«She memorized all of the words to the famous speech.«
(memorized, remembered, recalled)
«I give you my word that I will do everything I can.«
(give)
«I hope you keep your word about helping me.«
(keep)
«Describe in your own words what happened.«
(Describe, explain)
«He never breaks his word.«
(breaks, goes back on)
«Please trust my word on this.«
(trust, believe)
«How could you doubt my words?«
(doubt)
«Please send word to my family that I am doing well.«
(send, bring, get)
«Did you get word of what happened to them?»
(get, receive, hear)
«She spread the word about massive layoffs at the company.«
(spread)
«Just say the word and I will be there.«
(say)
Used with prepositions:
«Please tell the jury in your own words what happened.«
(in)
«What is the Spanish word for restroom?«
(for)
«We had a word about her behavior.«
(about)
«Can we have a word from our guest?«
(from)
«Let me give you a word of advice.«
(of)
«I need a quick word with you.«
(with)
Used with nouns:
«Would you like to play a word game?«
(game, puzzle)
«Her word choice was offensive.«
(choice)
«The therapist had the couple play word association.«
(association)
«The essay contest has a minimum word count.«
(count)
English grammar can often seem strange. We have so many rules for making sentences and almost as many exceptions to those rules. On a basic level, though, most English sentences follow a similar structure. Follow these five tips to make constructing English sentences easy.
Enjoy? Try downloading our eBooks! And find more tips on how to best present yourself on paper using perfect English grammar, alongside other useful examples.
- Get the words in the right order. The most common order for parts of a sentence is: subject, verb, object (if present).
Steve kicked the ball.
In this sentence, the subject is ‘Steve’, the verb is ‘kicked’ and the object is ‘the ball’. To help you remember this structure, try making an example with someone you know well as the subject and something they do often for the verb and object.
- Parts of speech aren’t always just one word. A subject, verb, or object is sometimes made up of several words so make sure you look at the structure of a whole sentence rather than just individual words if you want to get it right.
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People who practice a lot get higher scores.
In this sentence, the subject is ‘people who practice a lot’. We can call a subject made of several words a ‘subject phrase’ or ‘predicate’.
- There are two types of object. Sometimes you will see sentences with two objects. If that’s the case, we split them into two types:
Direct – the object with which the subject has a direct connection.
Indirect – the object with a weaker connection to the subject.
I bought some flowers for my mother.
In this sentence, ‘flowers’ is a direct object and ‘my mother’ is an indirect object. The indirect has a preposition before it if we want to use it at the end of the
sentence.
I bought my mother some flowers.
In this sentence the direct and indirect objects are in a different order. When the direct comes last, we don’t need to use a preposition.
- Compound sentences follow the same structure but do it twice. A compound sentence is one made of two clauses (sections). In this case, the sentence uses a conjunction to join two halves of the sentence, each of which has the same structure.
I cooked dinner and my father bought some drinks.
Subject Verb Object + Subject Verb Object
- Learn the exceptions to the rules. There are some sentence structures, for example, the passive voice, that work slightly differently. Once you are comfortable with declarative sentences, take some time to explore other sentence structures as they will give you language more variety and are a fun challenge to learn.
So, now you have some tips on how to make English sentences easily, have a go yourself in the comments section below. If you know any exceptions to the rules, share them with the other readers.
Want to learn more? Visit our website to start learning English online today!
Article related: Regular and irregular verbs
Wil
Wil is a writer, teacher, learning technologist and keen language learner. He’s taught English in classrooms and online for nearly 10 years, trained teachers in using classroom and web technology, and written e-learning materials for several major websites. He speaks four languages and is currently looking for another one to start learning.
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Last updated:
April 13, 2022
How to Make Your Own English Sentences with These 18 Easy Forms
By learning some easy English sentences, you are setting yourself up for understanding all English conversation.
Even the most complicated sentences start with a simple structure.
Learn these basic sentence structures, and you will be learning a valuable lesson—no matter what your level of English is.
Contents
- Understanding Parts of Speech
- How to Break Sentences into Sections
- Learning More About Sentence Structure
- 18 Quick Ways to Build Easy English Sentences, with 65+ Examples
-
- Making Statements About the Present
-
- 1. Describing something or someone.
- 2. Stating the location of something or someone.
- 3. Explaining what someone is doing.
- 4. Stating what someone does for a living or a hobby.
- 5. Expressing feelings.
- 6. Making a suggestion.
- Making Statements About the Past
-
- 7. Describing something or someone in the past.
- 8. Stating the location of something or someone in the past.
- 9. Explaining what someone did, or used to do in the past.
- Making Statements About the Future
-
- 10. Stating what someone will do in the future.
- 11. Stating when something will happen.
- Making Negative Statements
-
- 12. Stating what someone is not, or not doing.
- 13. Stating what someone did not do.
- 14. Stating what someone will not do in the future.
- Asking Questions
-
- 15. Asking where someone is.
- 16. Asking what someone is doing.
- 17. Asking about when something will happen.
- 18. Asking who is doing something.
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Understanding Parts of Speech
To understand easy English sentences, you need to break them down into even smaller parts.
Sentences are made up of words. More specifically, they are made up of parts of speech. A part of speech defines what a word does in a sentence.
The parts of speech are:
- Noun: A person, place or thing. Examples: Cat, table, king.
- Pronoun: A word used in place of a noun. Examples: He, she, they.
- Verb: An action word. Examples: Swim, is, write.
- Adjective: A word that modifies (changes) or describes a noun or another adjective. Examples: Beautiful, white, shiny.
- Adverb: A word that modifies or describes a verb. (It shows how something is done.) Examples: Quickly, carefully, brightly.
- Preposition: A word that describes the relationship to a noun. Examples: From, under, until.
- Conjunction: A connecting word. Examples: And, but, although.
If you don’t already know these parts of speech, read that list a few times. These terms will be important later in this post, in your English studies and in whichever English situations you find yourself in, whether with friends, at school or at work!
How to Break Sentences into Sections
So now you have the words you need to form your sentence, and you know what parts of speech they are. Now you need to learn how to combine them. A sentence has a subject (the person, place or thing that the sentence is about) and an action (what the subject is doing). Together, they express a complete thought. Even the shortest complete sentence in the English language follows this rule:
“I am.” (“I” is the subject, “am” is the action!)
Here is another simple sentence:
“I ate.”
Once you have your subject and action, you can start to add more detail. You can add an object (whoever or whatever the action is being done to):
“I ate a hamburger.”
Or you can add a description:
“I ate a delicious hamburger.”
Sometimes you can even add more subjects and actions:
“I ate a delicious hamburger, but my friend only ate some fries.”
When you are trying to understand a sentence, you can use the above knowledge to break it into smaller pieces. You can also use this information to create the most basic sentences.
Learning More About Sentence Structure
In this article, we are only giving you a basic glance of the many different sentence structures in the English language, perfect for anyone learning English for beginners. To learn more about sentence structure, visit one (or all) of these fantastic resources:
- This page has some useful advice for writing excellent sentences, with plenty of examples. The BBC also has a helpful video about English sentence structure.
- Click on any of the sentence structures in this article for a more detailed explanation.
- If you are a visual learner, Grammar Revolution provides a visual guide to different types of sentence structure.
- Tired of all the reading? Watch an English video instead! You’ll hear how native speakers build sentences naturally. FluentU is the perfect tool for this.
Okay, now you are ready to move on to building sentences!
Before you begin, there are two things you should know about this guide:
1. Whenever we use [noun], you can replace it with a [pronoun]. For example, you can say “Sam is tired,” or you can say “He is tired.” Both are correct.
2. Whenever we use “is,” you will need to replace it with the correct form of “to be.” Choose the right form based on this list for the present tense:
- I am.
- He / she / it is.
- You / they / we are.
And this list for the past tense:
- I / he / she / it was.
- You / they / we were.
That’s all! Now you are ready to begin.
Making Statements About the Present
1. Describing something or someone.
Form: [Noun] is [adjective].
Notes: If the noun you are using is not a pronoun, the name of a place or the name of a person, add the word “the” (or “this,” or “that”) before it.
Examples:
- The flower is red.
- You are wonderful.
- The Empire State Building is tall.
2. Stating the location of something or someone.
Form: [Noun] is [preposition] [location].
Notes: To state the location of something or someone, a preposition is usually necessary. Choose the correct preposition to give the right information. You can also say someone was “here” or “over there.” Since these terms are relative (their meaning depends on your own location), you do not need to add the final “location.”
Once again, nouns that are not names of people or places get “the” added before them.
Examples:
- The cat is under the bed.
- Charlie is next to Anne.
- He is on the train.
- The dog is here.
- The men are over there.
3. Explaining what someone is doing.
Form: [Noun] is [verb -ing].
Notes: The “-ing” form of a verb means an action is taking place right now. Use this form when talking about an action that has not ended yet.
Examples:
- He is reading.
- The cat is napping.
- Kate is singing.
4. Stating what someone does for a living or a hobby.
Form: [Noun] [verb -s].
Notes: Using this structure implies the subject of your sentence does the action regularly (like a hobby, or a job), even if they are not necessarily doing it right now.
Examples:
- He reads.
- The cat naps.
- Kate sings.
5. Expressing feelings.
Form: [Noun] [feeling verb -s] [noun]. / [Noun] [feeling verb -s] [to verb / verb -ing].
Notes: Feeling verbs are verbs like “love,” “like” or “hate.” You can love or hate an object, or an action. When you describe someone’s feelings about an action, you can use either the “to verb” or “verb -ing” forms. In most cases, both are correct! You can also use this form to describe needs and wants, but remember that in that case, the “verb -ing” form cannot be used. For example, you don’t “need sleeping.” You “need to sleep,” or just “need sleep.”
Examples:
- I love sunshine.
- The elephant likes painting.
- Tom hates his job.
- I need to eat.
- I want food.
- She wants to sleep.
- She needs sleep.
6. Making a suggestion.
Form: Let’s [verb]. / Please [verb].
Notes: To suggest an action that you will also take part in, use the first structure. To politely ask someone to do something, use the second one.
Examples:
- Let’s eat.
- Please eat.
- Please move. (Please note: This might be grammatically correct, but it is actually not very polite! The polite way to ask someone to move is to say “excuse me.”)
Making Statements About the Past
7. Describing something or someone in the past.
Form: [Noun] was [adjective].
Notes: You describe someone in the past tense almost the same exact way as in the present—just change the “is” to “was.” Using this structure suggests that either the description is no longer accurate, or that the description is for a specific moment.
Examples:
- The flower was red. (…It is not red anymore.)
- You were wonderful. (…You played the violin so well in the concert.)
- The Empire State Building was tall. (…Until the giant apes tore it down.)
8. Stating the location of something or someone in the past.
Form: [Noun] was [preposition] [location].
Notes: As with a description, describing a location in the past and the present is very similar. The rules remain the same; only the verb tense changes. Remember, again, that using this form means the location has changed, or that the statement was only true for a specific time period in the past.
Examples:
- The cat was under the bed. (…But then it ran away.)
- Charlie was next to Anne. (…Then he went behind her.)
- He was on the train. (…That is how he knew the train was going to be late.)
- The dog was here. (…But then its owner took it away.)
- The men were over there. (…Until they finished their job and went home.)
9. Explaining what someone did, or used to do in the past.
Form: [Noun] was [verb -ing]. / [Noun] [verb -ed].
Notes: There is a slight difference between the “verb -ed” form of an action, and the “was verb -ing” form. Using the “verb -ed” form describes something that has finished happening. Using the “-ing” form of a verb describes something that was happening during a specific period of time in the past.
Another form you can use is: [Noun] used [to verb]. This form is used for any kind of action that someone used to do in the past, but has since stopped doing.
All these forms can be used with feeling verbs, as well! Just add the “noun” or “verb -ing” after the feeling verb for a complete sentence.
Examples:
- The cat napped. (…That’s why he is so happy now.)
- Kate sang. (…The concert was wonderful.)
- He was reading. (…That is why he did not hear the doorbell ring.)
- The Statue of Liberty used to shine. (…But being in the salty water all those years has made it green.)
- I used to love shrimp. (…But then I learned that I am allergic to it.)
- Sally hated swimming. (…She had to do it every day in school.)
Making Statements About the Future
10. Stating what someone will do in the future.
Form: [Noun] is going to [verb]. / [Noun] will [verb].
Notes: The great thing about the future tense is that you don’t need to remember any verb forms! To turn a sentence into the future tense, just add the words “is going to” or “will” before the verb. Using this structure without any additional details means you will be doing the action very soon.
Examples:
- I am going to dance.
- We are going to eat.
- The baby is going to sleep.
11. Stating when something will happen.
Form: [Noun] will [verb] [preposition] [time]. / [Noun] is going to [verb] [time adverb].
Notes: Use this structure to talk about things that will happen in the future. When you use a specific time, a preposition is needed. Use “at” when stating a clock time, and “on” when stating a day or date. Use “in” when stating a year, month or another time frame (like “a couple of years” or “two minutes”). When you use a time adverb like today, tomorrow or yesterday, you don’t need a preposition.
Examples:
- The train will leave at 5:00 AM.
- I will visit my parents in October.
- Anthony is going to dance tomorrow.
Making Negative Statements
12. Stating what someone is not, or not doing.
Form: [Noun] is not [adjective / verb-ing].
Notes: Changing a sentence into a negative one is as easy as adding the word “not.”
Examples:
- The flower is not red. (…It is white.)
- You are not wonderful. (…That’s not very nice!)
- The Empire State Building is not tall. (…We never said the sentence has to be true!)
- Kate is not singing. (…Why did she stop?)
13. Stating what someone did not do.
Form: [Noun] did not [verb]. / [Noun] was not [verb -ing].
Notes: Remember the rules from before. Using the first form above puts the focus on the action (in this case, saying it did not happen at all). “Verb -ing” puts the focus on the time the action took place (saying it was not happening at a specific moment).
Examples:
- I did not sleep. (…I stayed awake all night.)
- I was not sleeping. (…While the teacher gave her lesson.)
- The customer did not pay. (…At all. How terrible!)
14. Stating what someone will not do in the future.
Form: [Noun] is not going to [verb]. / [Noun] will not [verb].
Notes: Changing the future tense into a negative sentence is just as easy. Just add “not” before the verb.
Examples:
- I am not going to eat. (…I will not eat green eggs and ham!)
- Sam will not dance. (…He has ants in his pants.)
- The cat will not nap. (…He is going to eat first.)
Asking Questions
15. Asking where someone is.
Form: Where is [noun]?
Notes: You can also use this form to ask about places, things and any other kind of noun you might be trying to find.
Examples:
- Where is the dog?
- Where is George?
- Where is the bathroom?
16. Asking what someone is doing.
Form: What is [noun] doing?
Notes: The noun in this case should be a living thing. (Generally, non-living objects don’t do much!)
Examples:
- What is that dog doing?
- What is Sal doing?
- What is the baby doing?
17. Asking about when something will happen.
Form: When will [noun] [verb]?
Notes: This is a useful sentence structure to know when you want to find out about events in the future.
Examples:
- When will the train leave?
- When will Fran visit?
- When will your mom call?
18. Asking who is doing something.
Form: Who is [verb -ing]? / Who is [verb -ing] [noun]?
Notes: This structure is a bit different. It can be used to refer to the present, and to the near future tenses. Use it to find out who is doing a certain action (for example, if you hear a trumpet and want to know who is playing it). Or, you can use it to find out who will be doing an action in the near future—for example, if you are going on a trip and want to know who will drive the car.
If the action is being done to something, don’t forget to add that something in for a complete thought!
Examples:
- Who is playing the trumpet?
- Who is driving?
- Who is cooking? (…It smells great!)
The easy sentences you learned above are just the beginning.
You have the first Legos in place.
Now go build a castle!
Download:
This blog post is available as a convenient and portable PDF that you
can take anywhere.
Click here to get a copy. (Download)
The rules of grammar are unlimited and it takes a good depth of time and effort to learn and understand them all. To start learning English, the first thing to start with is learning the grammar rules to make a proper sentence. You can go to the advanced level only if you have learned the art and grammar of sentence making. Let me help you with that. Let’s start by understanding all the basics related to sentence formation.
How to construct a sentence in English
First of all, you must understand what a sentence in the English language is? A sentence is:
- A group of words.
- It starts with a capital letter and ends in a full stop, exclamation mark, or question mark.
- It contains at least two parts – subject and predicate.
Before giving the example of a sentence, let me explain what are subject and predicate.
Subject: A subject is a person or thing about which a sentence is ‘about’. For e.g. let us take the sentence — ‘I drink water.” In this sentence subject is ‘I’. Because this sentence is about ‘I’. In a sentence, a subject is very easy to identify. Actually, the subject is a noun phrase. It is followed by a verb most of the time.
Predicate: The part of the sentence which talks about the subject is the predicate. For e.g. in the sentence – ‘I drink water.’ ‘Drink water’ is the predicate, as it talks about the subject ‘I’.
So, ‘I drink water.’ is a complete sentence which has all the three properties of the subject defined above.
The next question is if we make any sentence keeping in mind all the three features of the sentence delineated above, is it a complete sentence? No, it is not so. Actually, the grammar of any subject is complicated. Just putting the words together in a proper order does not always make sense. It is necessary for a sentence to convey some sense. There are certain rules to be followed for putting the words in a proper sequence to make a sense. In order to understand the basics of sentence formation, we have to know the types of sentences and what it is used for.
TYPES OF SENTENCES ON THE BASIS OF ARRANGEMENT OF WORDS:
On the basis of how words are arranged in a sentence, there arise three types of sentences:
- Simple Sentences
- Compound Sentences
- Complex Sentences
Let us understand, all of them one by one:
1. Simple Sentences:
As the type suggests, this sentence has the simplest of a structure with only one subject and predicate. It has one verb and a single subject, idea, thing or person about which it talks about. For e.g.
‘Mahika reads.’
It has only one subject i.e. Mahika and a single verb ‘reads’.
Note: There is a definite property of the simple sentence. In a simple sentence, even if you add some prepositional phrase, adverb or adjective, etc. it doesn’t change itself to a complex sentence. Moreover, it will not get altered even after its conjunction with many types of nouns or verbs. For e.g.
Stars twinkled and shined brightly. or
The cat with white fur always meows loudly.
Both of these are simple sentences only, as there are only one subject and one verb in both of these sentences.
2. Compound Sentences:
Compound sentences are formed by joining two simple sentences with some conjunction. I hope, that you already know what is a conjunction? The conjunction is a word or group of words that help to join two sentences. The common conjunctions used to join two simple sentences are and, but and or.
For e.g.
Rodger left home and Nadal returned home.
In the above sentence, you can notice that there are two simple sentences ‘Rodger left home’ and ‘Nadal returned home’, which were joined together with the conjunction ‘and’ to make a compound sentence. One similar e.g. is
I enjoyed the movie, but my sister didn’t like it.
3. Complex Sentences:
The characteristics of a complex sentence are:
- It talks about more than one idea, thing, or person.
- It has more than one verb in it.
- It has more than one clause. At least one of the clauses is dependent on the other.
For e.g.
I carry only those things in my luggage which are easy to handle.
TYPES OF SENTENCES ON THE BASIS OF PURPOSE:
On the basis of the purpose for which a sentence is used, sentences are of four types:
- Declarative Sentences
- Imperative Sentences
- Interrogative Sentences
- Exclamatory Sentences
1. Declarative Sentences:
Declarative sentences are the sentences that are used to express some definite information. The use of declarative sentences is most common in day to day conversations. These type of sentences always ends with a full stop. For e.g.
Honesty is the best policy.
2. Imperative sentences:
Imperative sentences are actually used to order someone or give a command or make some requests. These sentences also end with the sign of period. For e.g.
Go to the rooftop.
3. Interrogative Sentences:
They are the sentences that are formed to interrogate someone i.e. to ask questions. They do not end with a period sign, but with a sign of question mark. For e.g.
Did you order her to leave the room?
4. Exclamatory Sentences:
These sentences are used to express feelings or emotions. These sentences are not very often used in academic writing. Literary works make use of these sentences only when they tend to convey very strong emotion. These type of sentence always end with a mark of exclamation. For e.g.
She is amazing!
I think you must now be very clear about what a sentence is and what its type is?
English sentence structure rules
PARTS OF SPEECH:
Now, let us move towards developing an understanding of the anatomy and parts of a sentence. You cannot make appropriate sentences if you don’t know the part of speech and tenses. Let us now understand the basic parts of speech one by one.
Noun: Noun is the basic entity of grammar. It is the name of place, thing, idea, feeling, activity, animal or quality. For e.g. Ram, Cat, Pencil are all noun. The noun can be further of three types: possessive, singular or plural.
Pronoun: Pronoun is something that calls the noun or takes its place. For e.g. I, they, we, etc.
Verb: A verb is a word that is used to express or show an activity. For e.g. walk, sit, run, see, raise, etc. are all verbs. There is a quality of verb – the verb is also used to show a tense by changing its form. All three tenses can easily be represented with the help of a verb. For e.g. while the word walk denotes the present tense, the word ‘walked’ is the past form of this verb.
Adverb: When some words tell or talk about the verb, they are said to be adverbs. For e.g. when, why, how, where, etc.
Adjective: Whenever there needs be any requirement of qualifying a noun, we use an adjective. For e.g. ‘She was wearing a red dress.’ ‘Red’ word is here qualifying or adding some quality to the noun, so it is an adjective here.
Proposition: A preposition relates nouns or pronouns. For e.g. in, on, beside, ahead, apart are all prepositions. It is used to express various things like reason, motion, time, etc.
Conjunction: As the proposition connects nouns/pronouns, conjunction connects two phrases or words. E.g. and, or, but, etc.
Interjection: Interjection is a word which expresses an emotion. For e.g. Alas, hurray, yippee, etc.
Articles: It is a word which modifies a noun. Articles are used mostly to refer to a noun.
PUNCTUATIONS TO BE USED IN A SENTENCE:
No sentence is ever complete without using punctuations. A full stop in itself is punctuation. Some of the punctuations used commonly are:
Capitalization: It is known to all the basis English knowers that each sentence starts with a capital letter. For e.g., Ram is a good boy. In this sentence, ‘R’ of Ram is capital because it is from this letter that the sentence is starting. Apart from the first letter of the sentence, name of books, people, special places, countries, etc. are all capitalized.
Question mark: Whenever a sentence is proposed to ask a question, it ends with a question mark. For e.g.
‘How do you do?’
Period/Full Stop: A usual sentence ends with a period. Naturally, a sentence which doesn’t end with an exclamation mark or question mark, it ends with a period. For e.g.
My name is David.
Colon: It is used to separate a sentence in two parts, especially when one part explains the second one. There is a semicolon (;) as well which is sometimes used in place of conjunction. You will find its common use before words like ‘therefore’ or ‘however’.
For e.g.
‘The parts of speech are Adverb, Verb, Noun, etc.
Commas (,): These are used in the sentence where there is any need for a pause in the sentence. These are also used to separate the different things, day of months, etc. For e.g.
‘She bought many things like apple, banana, pencil, cup, etc. ‘
Apostrophes (‘): It is used to show possession or in contractions. E.g.
‘Child’s play.’
There is one more rule for the use of an apostrophe. An apostrophe is used with s, if the noun is singular. And an apostrophe alone is used when the noun form is plural.
So, now you know all, parts of speech, punctuations, and types of sentences. The more you will practice making the sentences with them, the more you will get a hold on them.
Sentence formation in English with grammar
Let us now understand some more advanced grammar-related terminologies that help in constructing a sentence as well as understanding the structure of the sentence.
1. Object:
With subject and predicate, there is one more thing worth learning i.e. object. The object is the thing or the person upon which the verb acts. E.G. will make it more clear.
The singer is singing a song.
Here the object is ‘song’. It is the thing upon which the verb is relying. The verb singing depends on the thing song.
2. Transitive/Intransitive Verbs
These are simple to identify verbs. If any verb has an object attached to it, it is called transitive verb.
For e.g.
‘She sang a song.’
So in this sentence, the verb ‘sang’ has an object ‘song’ attached to it. So the verb and is a transitive verb. Now let us take the next example.
‘She consented.’
Here the verb ‘consent’ doesn’t have any object attached to it. The sentence is not clarifying that the subject ‘She’ consented for what. So it is an intransitive verb for sure.
The confusion arises when a verb seems to be both transitive and intransitive. For e.g. the verb ‘sing’ gave rise to such confusion sometimes.
3. Adverbials:
The adverbial works in line with an adverb i.e. it qualifies the verb. But the only difference is that an adverbial instead of qualifying the verb with a single word, it expresses in detail about how the action in the verb is/was done.
For e.g.
‘He spoke very politely.’
In this sentence, ‘politely’ is an adverb, but ‘very politely’ is adverbial.
4. Complement:
As the adverbial talks more about the verb, the complement talks more about the subject. It sometimes even talks in detail about the object also. Let us learn by example. The example of the complement talks about the subject.
‘She became a doctor.’
In the following sentence, the complement talks about the object.
‘She painted the wall red.’
Sometimes, we get confused between the adverbial and the compliment. With utmost care and precision only will you be able to differentiate between these two.
So, in this section, I have tried to explain all the basic terminologies, patterns, punctuations, etc. used to make a common sentence that doesn’t involve the complex use of the tense structures. Later, I am going to discuss the tenses as well. Till then learn, practice, and understand the above-defined concepts well.