BVIShcmc_EALBlog: 40 Grammar Terms You Need to Know

nouns
singular	plural	countable	uncountable

Nouns are mostly the names of things e.g. dog, idea, reason, strength
Singular nouns (one): dog, idea, reason, strength
Plural nouns (more than one): dogs, ideas, reasons, strengths
Countable nouns can be singular or plural e.g. dog / dogs
Uncountable nouns e.g. love, air, oil can only be singular and can’t be used with a or an

adjectives
comparatives	superlatives

determiners
articles	possessives	demonstratives	quantifiers

pronouns
personal	possessive	reflexive	relative

Pronouns replace nouns.
Personal pronouns can be subject pronouns (that go at the beginning of a sentence) e.g. I, she, we or object pronouns (that go at the end of a sentence) e.g. him, her, us
Possessive pronouns e.g. mine, yours
Reflexive pronouns e.g. myself, yourself
Relative pronouns (e.g. who, whose, which, that) are used in relative clauses.

types of verbs
transitive	intransitive	auxiliary verb	modal verb

Verbs mostly refer to actions, events or situations e.g. run, turn, stop, seem
Transitive verbs are verbs that are used with an object e.g. kick (a football), hear (a noise)
Intransitive verbs are verbs that aren’t used with an object e.g. sleep, speak up, wait, cry
The auxiliary verbs be, have and do are used with other verbs to make different tenses, questions, negatives and passives.
Modal verbs are a small group of auxiliary verbs (e.g. can, may, must, should etc.) that add information about the speaker’s feelings or judgement about an action or situation.

tenses
past	present	future	simple	continuous	perfect

Tenses are forms of verbs that show time relations.
Tenses can be simple (e.g. I work/ she works), continuous (e.g. I was staying / we’re working / they’ll be working) or perfect (e.g. I’ve lived / she had broken)

forms of verbs
base form	infinitive	past participle	-ing form	active voice	passive voice

The base form of the verb is the verb before you change it to match subject or time in a sentence e.g. eat, love, play
The infinitive is the same as the base form but with to e.g. to eat, to love, to play
Past participles (e.g. written, become, read) are sometimes called the third form of the verb (or V3 – verb 3). We use them when we make perfect tenses and passive forms.
-ing forms e.g. smoking, waiting
Active voice verbs: The Chinese invented paper.
Passive voice verbs: Paper was invented by the Chinese.

other grammar words
prepositions	adverbs	adverb particles

Prepositions help verbs, nouns and adjectives fit into sentences e.g. she ran down the road, I’m afraid of spiders, there are significant differences between the northern and southern dishes
Adverbs give more information about verbs, adjectives or other parts of a sentence e.g. We really tried, I often see her, it was terribly cold
Adverb particles are small adverbs that follow verbs to change the meaning of the verb e.g. If you don’t know the meaning of a word, look it up, they broke up last week, sometimes I have to look after my little brother.

sentence
subject	object	complement	clause	conjunction

The subject of a sentence usually comes before a verb and tells us who or what does something e.g. My dad drives an old Mercedes, I broke a cup
The object usually comes after the verb and tells us who or what something happens to e.g. I broke a cup, my dad drives an old Mercedes
Some verbs (like be, seem, look) can be followed by a complement, which is different from an object because complements describe the subject. Complements can be nouns (e.g. he’s a doctor) or adjectives (e.g. he looks tired, she’s very pretty.
A clause is any meaningful group of words that includes a verb. A sentence can consist of only one clause (e.g. I love ice cream) or a sentence can have two or more clauses joined together (e.g. [Jan opened the door] and [we went in]).
Conjunctions (e.g. and, but, so, when, although, because) are words that join clauses together to make longer sentences.