SK-Teaching English

𝐏𝐚𝐫𝐭𝐬 𝐨𝐟 𝐒𝐩𝐞𝐞𝐜𝐡: what are they?

𝐏𝐚𝐫𝐭𝐬 𝐨𝐟 𝐒𝐩𝐞𝐞𝐜𝐡 is a grammatical category or class of English words. In the old days, parts of speech are generally categorized into eight types: noun, pronoun, adjective, verb, adverb, preposition, conjunction and interjection. Nowadays, linguists add another category to the parts of speech. This new part of speech is called determiner.

Below you can find basic definitions and examples of each part of speech:
1/- Nouns: nouns can be things, animals, people, abstract things or ideas. E.g., student, doctor, dog, cat, pencil, happiness, money…etc.

2/- Pronouns: pronouns replace or represent nouns, and they are used to avoid word repetition or to refer to something when it is obvious what you mean.
E.g., I, you, we, they…etc.

3/- Adjectives: adjectives describe nouns.
E.g., happy, true, sad, red, blue…etc.

4/- Verbs: verbs can be actions or states.
E.g., actions: do, work, walk, ride…etc.; states: love, like, understand…etc.

5/- Adverbs: adverbs describe verbs or adjectives and can be used to add information to the whole sentence.
E.g., I rarely walk to school.
Turtles are very slow.
Sometimes, I cook for my parents.
6/- Prepositions: prepositions are words that add an idea of time, place or movement to a noun or words that connect other words to a noun or a pronoun. They usually go before a noun or noun phrase.
E.g., on Wednesday, at home, in Cambodia…etc.; My family depends on me to earn money.

7/- Conjunctions: conjunctions are words that connect two things –two words, two phrases or two clauses.
E.g., I love cats and dogs.
Eating breakfast and doing exercise are what I do every morning.
I make some cake because it is my cousin’s birthday.

8/- Interjections: interjections are words or phrases that show how you feel.
E.g., Wow!
Oh my god!
What a beautiful weather!
Good Job!

9/- Determiners: determiners help specify which noun you’re talking about. E.g., a, an, the, this or that…etc. They help specify which noun you’re talking about by saying whom something belongs to. E.g., my, your, his, her, its…etc. They go before a noun and can also tell you how many of something there are.
E.g., There are five students in the class.
I give some books to my friend.
Both my friend and I like watching movies.

𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐂𝐚𝐩𝐢𝐭𝐚𝐥 𝐋𝐞𝐭𝐭𝐞𝐫, 𝘄𝗵𝗲𝗻 𝗱𝗼 𝘄𝗲 𝘂𝘀𝗲 𝗶𝘁?
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The capital letter is also called big letter or upper-case letter, or sometimes just a capital.

When do we use a capital letter?
- Use a capital letter for the first letter in a sentence
e.g. This is a dog.
He goes to school in the morning.

- Always use a capital letter for the word I
e.g. I am four years old.
Jenny and I are friends.

- Use a capital letter for names (people, animals, things, places...etc.)
e.g. I live in Cambodia.
John is the name of my dog.
My friends visit Angkor Wat during their holidays.

- Use a capital letter for festivals, holidays, days of the week and months of the year
e.g. Khmer New Year is celebrated in April every year.
I bought gifts for my children on Christmas Eve.
I go to work on Monday.
I was born in January.