English Grammar Module

For English Camp(modest user group)

Article

• 2 categories of article– Indefinite article; a, an– Definite article; the

• Indefinite Article - a, an– For a single thing that can be counted• a girl, • a tiger, • an airport

– We call these singular countable nouns.– Do not use a or an • before a plural name• Before the name of a thing that cannot be counted.

– Do not use an before a word that a vowel that make ‘you’ sound. Use a instead.• A European• A university

– Use an before a word that begin with • a vowel sound by letters a, e, i ,o, u• a silent h

– An hour– An honour– An honest boy

• Letters spoken with a vowel sound– An ‘A’ for English exam– An SMS from a friend

– Use a before • the common name that we give to people, animals,

places and things– A schoolboy– A bicycle

– Use a or an• Before a word that describes a single person or thing.• Before the name of occupation• When mention a person or thing for the first time• To show which country a person comes from.• When counting or measuring thing

– The fish costs RM40 a kilo.

• Definite article – The– Use the• Before the name that can be counted.• Before the name that cannot be counted.• When people already know exactly which person or

thing you are talking about.• When you refer to something for a second time.• With groups that represent the whole class of people

or thing.• For familiar things or because it is only one of its kind.• Before ordinals• Before superlatives

• Do not use a, an or the before– the people’s names and titles.– the name of most roads, villages, towns, cities,

states and countries.– the names of holidays, festivals and events that

are celebrated yearly when we refer them in general.

– the names of nationalities and languages when we talk about them in general.

– names of meals or food when referring in general– general names of sports or leisure activities

– The names of colours when you speak in general– The names of days or months of the year or

seasons, in general sense– Abstract noun that are used in a general sense– The name of diseases or illnesses.

• Do not use a, an, the after– The word both and all– The words like kind of, type of, species of, variety

of etc…

Nouns

• We use a noun – to name a person, animal, place or thing.– to name an quality or an emotion.

• Type of nouns– Common– Proper– Abstract– Collective– Compound

• Common nouns– The general name that we give to people and

things– Do not start with capital letters unless at the

beginning of sentences– Can take a plural form.– Example• Intelligent boy• Elephants at the zoo.

• Proper nouns– The name of specific person or thing– Example• Jenny Lim • Singapore• Kitty the cat

– Begin with capital letters no matter where it occurs in a sentence.

• Collective nouns– Name of the group or collection of similar thing or

people.– People

• A troop of soldier• A crew of sailor• A band of musician• A field of runner• A panel of judges• A gang of thieves• A staff of teachers• A tribe of natives• A troupe of dancers• A choir of singers

– Animals• A brood of chickens• A pack of wolves• A flock of birds/sheep• A pride of lions• A gaggle of geese• A school/shoal of fish• A herd of cattle• A swarm of bees• A litter of kittens• A team of oxen

• Thing– A bale of cotton– A clutch of eggs– A batch of bread– A clump of trees– A bouquet of roses– A fleet of ships– A chest of drawers– A deck of cards– A galaxy of stars– A string of pearls

• Abstract noun– Refers to things such as concepts, qualities or

ideas– Not solid thing that we can count or touch.– Things that we can think about or feel– Example• Love• Kindness• Health

• Compound nouns– Is a noun that is made up of two or more words– Example– Basketball (basket + ball)– Walking stick (walking + stick)– Mother-in-law (mother + in + law)

• Countable nouns– Nouns that can be counted– Have both singular and plural form– Use a or an with singular countable noun.– Use a few, several, many, a lot of, plenty of, a

number of and numerals to count plural nouns.

• Spelling rule for plural countable nouns– Add suffix –s to make a noun plural• Clown => Clowns• School=> Schools

– Add suffix –es to a noun that ends in –s, -ss, -sh, -ch, –x and –o to make it plural• Bus => Buses• Bush => Bushes• Witch => Witches• Box => Boxes• Potato => Potatoes

– Add suffix –ies to a noun that ends in a consonant –y to make it plural• Baby => babies• Spy => Spies• Lorry => Lorries

– Add suffix –ves to some nouns that end in –f or –fe to make them plural. However, the –f or –fe has to be dropped.• Wolf => Wolves• Knife => Knives

• For irregular noun,– Change the vowel sound of a singular noun to

make it plural• Tooth => Teeth• Man => Men• Woman => Women• Mouse => Mice• Louse => Lice

– Add the suffix –en to make a noun to make it plural• Child => children• Ox => Oxen

• Some nouns have no singular at all– Trouser– Pyjamas– Clothes– Scissors– Spectacles– Tongs

• Uncountable noun – Some nouns cannot be counted.– Example;

– Liquid-like things such as oil, water.– Very tiny things such as sugar, flour.

– Quantifiers such as some, any, no, much, a little, a lot of etc. to measure the uncountable nouns.

Pronouns

• A pronoun is a word that is used to replace a noun word or a noun phrase.

• It is to avoid repeating same noun many times.• Example of phrase without pronoun– Salleh and Laila live in Arau. Salleh and Laila are

teachers. Salleh teaches English but Salleh does not teach Mathematics. Laila teach Mathematics but Laila does not teach English.

• Personal pronoun– To refer to people.– Personal pronoun can be in the first person,

second person and third person such as in table below.

– Use first person pronoun to talk about yourself.– Use second person pronoun to speak to

somebody else.

First person Second person Third person

I, me you He, him, she, her, it

We, us they They, them

– Use third person pronouns to speak of other people. • Use she or her for female• Use he or him for male• Use it for animal or thing• Use they or them for plural male, female, animal or

thing.

• Possessive pronoun– To show ownership– Use possessive pronoun without a noun.

– Example : This is mine iPad.– A possessive pronoun tells us whether the owner

is single person or many people.

singular Plural

First person Mine Ours

Second person Yours Yours

Third person His, hers theirs

• Demonstrative pronouns– To say whether the person or thing we are talking

about is near us or not so near.– The demonstrative pronoun are as in the table

belowDemonstrative pronoun

number What it point to

This Singular A person or thing that is near us

These Plural Two or more people or things that are near us

That Singular A person or thing that is farther away

Those Plural Two or more things or people that are farther away

• Reflexive pronouns– To show that the subject and the object in a

sentence are the same person or thing.– Help us make it clear that the doer and the

receiver of the action is the same person or thing.– Example : Ratchel bought herself a new skirt.– Use reflexive pronoun to emphasis by replacing

immediately after the pronoun or noun phrase. This will tell us clearly that the subject did without any help.

– Use by + reflexive pronoun to emphasize the meaning ‘alone’.

Subject Reflexive pronoun (singular)

Reflexive pronoun (plural)

I Myself -

You Yourself Yourselves

He Himself Themselves

She Herself Themselves

It Itself Themselves

We - Ourselves

They - Themselves

Adjective

• A word that gives us information about a noun.

• Adjective do not have tenses and do not need to agree with the subject in person and number.

• We usually put an adjective before the noun it describe or modifies. we can also put it after the noun.

• Adjectives of quality– To describe noun that give opinion, size, condition,

age and colour.– Can be used with adverb of degree like absolutely,

very, rather, fairly and a little and these adjective also have comparative and superlative forms.

– Here are some common adjective of quality.

big green wet nice easi excellent

Small Red good Dark difficult Triangular

Large Round Smart Strange Fierce Wondeful

Long New Sad Shiny Horrible Expensive

short clean Happy stupid Peaceful rectangular

• Classifying adjective– Describe the shape, origin, material, location and

purpose of noun. – Cannot be graded by using adverb of degree and

they do not have comparative and superlative form.

Malay Islamic Metal plastic Medical

Indian Eastern Cloth Alarm Political

Chinese Western Nylon Riding Scientific

English Christian Paper Healing Educational

Sabahan European leather Shinning environmental

• Order of adjective– When we use two or more adjective before a

noun in a sentence, we should place then in a particular order.

– Given below is a suggested pattern of how this can be done.

1 Opinion 6 Colour

2 Size 7 Origin

3 Condition 8 Material

4 Age (frequency) 9 Type

5 Shape 10 purpose

Conjunctions

• A linking or a joining word• To connect words and sentences.

Conjunction Explanation

And To join words or sentences that share same value or function

Because To join words or sentences that has cause and effect

But To join words or sentences that are not same kind and unexpected

or To give a choice

Verb

• English verb can be made up of a verb and another verb.

• Verb that combine with prepositions are called as prepositional verb whereas those that combine with adverb are called as phrasal verb.

• Prepositional verb– In this combination, the preposition has an object.– Example• The cat jumped off the table.• My parents are looking at my report card.

• Phrasal verb– When the phrasal verb has an object, the adverb

can be put before or after it.– If the object is a pronoun or functions like one,

then the adverb must be put after the pronoun.

Wh- questions

• Wh- questions is purposely to ask a question– What => to ask about people and things• What is that boy’s name?• What did you do yesterday?

– Who and Whom => to ask about people or to identify them.• Who is that woman?• To whom did you give it?

– Where => to ask about a place or position of something• Where do you live?• Where are all the boys?

– Which => to ask about a choice• Which drink do you like best?

– Why => to ask about reason• Why were they late?

– When => to ask about time• When will he arrive?

– Whose => to ask about who is the owner• Whose pen is this?

– How => to ask about the way something is done or to find out the condition• How is the soup?

– How many => to ask about numbers• How many candles are there?

Question Tags

• Usually a short question added to the end of a statement

• Made up of an auxiliary verb or a modal verb and a pronoun as the subject.

• Usually contract or shorten the negative form of the verb in a question tag.

• When you say something positive, use a negative question tag in order to get a yes answer.

Positive statement Negative tag Expected response

They like teddy bears,

Don’t they? Yes

• When you say something positive, use a negative question tag in order to get a yes answer.

Negative statement

Positive tag Expected response

I don’t have to bring extra food,

Do I? No

• Use a question tag to find out if something is true– He is our fastest runner, isn’t he?

• Use a question tag to get someone to agree with you on something.– The curry was hot, wasn’t it?

• If the statement has a word like is, are, was, were, has, have, had, do, does, did, can, could, would, must, repeat that word in the question tag.– They are helpful, aren’t they?

• Use doesn’t, don’t or didn’t in question tag if the statement does not contain an auxiliary verb.– Your mother cooks a lot of vegetables, doesn’t

she?• Use question tags after the statement, not

after the question.

Simple Present Tense

• Present tense connects the time of an action or a state of being to the present moment in time.

• Simple Present Tense talks about– A routine, that is repeating action again and again.• I wash my hair every day.

• Something that always true.– We have two hands.

• Add –s, -es or –ies to the end of the verb in the simple present tense if the subject is in the 3rd person singular.

Present Continuous Tense

• Also known as present progressive tense• To show action in progress or continuous

action• The action is temporary in the time of

speaking– Be(is, am, are) + noun + ing– Example; I am looking my sister

• Some basic rule to follow– Rule 1: If the verb ends with –e, drop the –e and

add –ing. Example;• Dance => dancing

– Rule 2: If the verb ends in a consonant and has a vowel before it, double the consonant and add –ing. Example;• Grab => grabbing

– Rule 3: If the verb ends in a vowel +y, just add –ing. Example;• Say =>saying

– Rule 4: Some verb that ends with a c have k + ing added to them. Example;• Panic =>Panicking

– Rule 5: In single syllable verb where there is a consonant-vowel-consonant combination, double the final consonant and add –ing. This rule does not apply to words ending with –w, -x or –y.

Simple Past Tense

• The past tense shows us what happened in the past.

• The action is completely finished before the time of speaking.

• Most verb form the simple past tense with –ed. Words like these are called regular verb.– We walked up that hill last Saturday.

• There are some rules that you have to follow when you form the simple past tense of regular verb.– Rule 1: If the verb ends with –e or –ee, add –d

only.• Spencer used up all his money yesterday.

Past Continuous Tense

• Past continuous tense is used to talk about an action or an event which was going on at particular time at the past.

• The action started before that particular time and most likely went on for a short while after that– Example; It was raining heavily during recess time.

• Use past continuous tense– To talk about an action that was going on over a

longer period or over a whole period of time.– To talk about an action that was happening but

was interrupted by another action.• Tasha was frying an egg when she heard a knock on the

door.– To talk about two actions that were going on at

the same time• Diana was blowing up the balloons while Martin was

tying them up.

• The auxiliary be forms need to change in this tenses.

– example :• I was playing the piano for them.• They were crying this morning.

Auxiliary be (present) Auxiliary be (past) Subject

Am Was I

Are Were You

Is Was He / She / It

are were They / We

• Use not with the past continuous tense to turn it into the negative.– I was not talking to you.– My parents were not feeling well all last week.

• Some verbs are not usually used in past continuous tense such as recognise, own, forget and fear.– But, in informal speech we normally break this

rules

Simple Future Tense• Future Tense is used to tell us that the action

describe by the verb will take place at some point in the time to come.– Use will to talk about things that will probably or

certainly happen in the future; that we cannot control.• She will be 12 years old tomorrow.

– Use shall • In the first person singular and plural.• To ask questions

• Use will/shall to– Make offers, requests, suggestions and to give

orders.• Shall we cook dinner for you tonight?• Will you turn off the tap, please?

– Express willingness and decisions.• We will repair the door for you.

– Make promise and to give warnings.• Leave now or I will call police.

– Make prediction• It will rain tonight.

Preposition

• Words like on, in, under, of, by and for are called preposition.

• Usually comes before a noun.• Preposition is used – To show location, direction, movement and time.

• Preposition can a single word or more.

• Prepositional phrase– Made up of a preposition and the word(s) that

follow it.– A preposition can be followed by a noun phrase, a

pronoun or a gerund.– Example• We found a cat sleeping on our new car this morning.• There is a rat behind the cupboard.• This rose is for you.

• Preposition of place– Tell us where someone or something is– Usually put them after the verb and before the

noun phrase in a sentence.• Preposition of movement– Tells us about change of place or position– Always follow a verb

• Preposition of time– Tells us when something is happen–

preposition explanation preposition explanation

On To show that something is in contact with the top layer of something else

In To show that something is surrounded or enclosed by something else

Under To show that something is directly below something else

Beside To show that something is next to or very close to something else

above To show that something is at a higher level than something else

Against To show that something is touching or rubbing the surface of something else

Below To show that something is at a lower level than something else

Among To show that something is included in a larger group of other things

Behind To show that something is at or towards the back of something else

Between To show that something is in the space that separates two other things

In front of To show that something is close to the front part of something else

near To show that something is not far from something else

preposition explanation preposition explanation

Across show movement from one side to other side of area

Into Show movement to a place inside something

Through Show movement that goes in one end of something and comes out from the other

Out of Show movement from the inside to the outside of something

Past Show movement that is up to and beyond something

Over Show movement that is higher than something, without touching it

Along Show movement that is in one direction usually following the length of something

Away from Show movement of something to a distance from something else