English for You

Types of nouns:

Nouns form a large proportion of English vocabulary and they come in a wide variety of types. Nouns can name a person:

Albert Einstein
the president
my mother
a girl
Nouns can also name a place:

Mount Vesuvius
Disneyland
my bedroom
Nouns can also name things, although sometimes they might be intangible things, such as concepts, activities, or processes. Some might even be hypothetical or imaginary things.

shoe
faucet
freedom
The Elder Wand
basketball

What is a noun?

A noun is a word that names something, such as a person, place, thing, or idea. In a sentence, nouns can play the role of subject, direct object, indirect object, subject complement, object complement, appositive, or adjective.

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The 8 parts of speech

1. Nouns

A noun is a person, place, concept, or object. Basically, anything that’s a “thing” is a noun, whether you’re talking about a basketball court, San Francisco, Cleopatra, or self-preservation.
Nouns fall into two categories: common nouns and proper nouns. Common nouns are general names for things, like planet and game show. Proper nouns are specific names for individual things, like Jupiter and Jeopardy!

2. Pronouns

Pronouns are the words you substitute for specific nouns when the reader or listener knows which specific noun you’re referring to.
You might say “Jennifer was supposed to be here at eight,” then follow it with “she’s always late; next time I’ll tell her to be here a half-hour earlier.”
Instead of saying Jennifer’s name three times in a row, you substituted she and her and your sentences remained grammatically correct.

3. Adjectives

Adjectives are the words that describe nouns. Think about your favorite movie. How would you describe it to a friend who’s never seen it?
You might say the movie was funny, engaging, well-written, or suspenseful. When you’re describing the movie with these words, you’re using adjectives. An adjective can go right before the noun it’s describing (I have a black dog), but it doesn’t have to. Sometimes, adjectives are at the end of a sentence (my dog is black).

4. Verbs

Go! Be amazing! Run as fast as you can! Win the race! Congratulate every participant for putting in the work to compete!
These bolded words are verbs. Verbs are words that describe specific actions, like running, winning, and being amazing.
Not all verbs refer to literal actions, though. Verbs that refer to feelings or states of being, like to love and to be, are known as nonaction verbs. Conversely, the verbs that do refer to literal actions are known as action verbs.

5. Adverbs

An adverb is a word that describes an adjective, a verb, or another adverb. Take a look at these examples:
Here’s an example: I entered the room quietly. Quietly is describing how you entered (verb) the room.
Here’s another example: A cheetah is always faster than a lion. Always is describing how frequently a cheetah is faster (adjective) than a lion.

6. Prepositions

Prepositions tell you the relationship between the other words in a sentence.
Here’s an example: I left my bike leaning against the garage. In this sentence, against is the preposition because it tells us where I left my bike.
Here’s another example: She put the pizza in the oven. Without the preposition in, we don’t know where the pizza is.

7. Conjunctions

Conjunctions make it possible to build complex sentences that express multiple ideas.
I like marinara sauce. I like alfredo sauce. I don’t like puttanesca sauce. Each of these three sentences expresses a clear idea. There’s nothing wrong with listing your preferences like this, but it’s not the most efficient way to do it.
Consider instead: I like marinara sauce and alfredo sauce, but I don’t like puttanesca sauce.

8. Articles

A pear. The brick house. An exciting experience. These bolded words are known as articles.
Like nouns, articles come in two flavors: definite articles and indefinite articles. And just like the two types of nouns, the type of article you use depends on how specific you need to be about the thing you’re discussing.
A definite article describes one specific noun, like the and this. Example: Did you buy the car?
Now swap in an indefinite article: Did you buy a car?
See how the implication is gone and you’re asking a much more general question?