English Grammar Module

1. English Grammar Module For English Camp (modest user group)

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

3. 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.

4. 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

5. 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.

6. 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

7. 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

8. 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…

9. 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

10. 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.

11. 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.

12. 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

13. 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

14. 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

15. 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

16. 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)

17. 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.

18. 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

19. 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

20. 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

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

22. 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.

23. 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.

24. 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 pronounto talk about yourself. • Use second person pronoun to speak to somebody else.

25. 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.

26. 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.

27. 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

28. 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’.

30. 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.

31. 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.

32. 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.

33. 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.

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

35. 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 phrasalverb.

36. 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.

37. 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?

38. 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?

39. 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?

40. 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.

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

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

43. 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?

44. 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.

45. 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 havetwo hands.

46. Add –s, -esor –iesto the end of the verb in the simple present tense if the subject is in the 3rd person singular.

47. 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

48. 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

49. Rule 4: Some verb that ends with a c have k + ingadded 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.

50. 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.