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English Grammar Module
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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.
First person
Second person
Third person
I, me
you
He, him, she, her, it
We, us
they
They, them
– Use first person pronoun to talk about yourself.
– Use second person pronoun to speak to
somebody else.
– 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.
singular
Plural
First person
Mine
Ours
Second person
Yours
Yours
Third person
His, hers
theirs
– Example : This is mine iPad.
– A possessive pronoun tells us whether the owner
is single person or many people.
• 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
below
Demonstrative
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,
Yes
Don’t they?
• When you say something positive, use a
negative question tag in order to get a yes
answer.
Negative
statement
I don’t have to
bring extra food,
Positive tag
Expected response
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.
Auxiliary be (present)
Auxiliary be (past)
Subject
Am
Was
I
Are
Were
You
Is
Was
He / She / It
are
were
They / We
– example :
• I was playing the piano for them.
• They were crying this morning.
• 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
Among
lower level than something else
To show that something is
included in a larger group of
other things
Behind
To show that something is at or Between
towards the back of something
else
To show that something is
in the space that separates
two other things
In front of
To show that something is close near
to the front part of something
else
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