Lesson
Eight Parts of Speech for ESL Learners
Words are used to form patterns of English grammar and syntax. Each word falls into one of eight categories referred to as parts of speech. Here are the eight commonly recognized parts of speech.
Certain words have further categorization such as: adverbs of frequency: always, sometimes, often, etc. or determiners: this, that, these, those . However, the basic categorization of words in English fall into these eight categories.
The Eight Parts of Speech Noun
A word which is a person, place, thing or idea.
Examples:
Mount Everest, book, horse, Peter, strength, car, Empire State Building, China, house, child
Pronoun
A word that is used to take the place of a noun.
Examples:
I, they, their, ourselves, itself, your, my, nobody, who, which, her, we
Adjective
A word that is used to describe a noun or pronoun.
Examples:
proud, purple, French, few, this, huge, sad, second, none
Verb
A word that indicates an action, being or state or being.
Examples:
play, run, think, study, smell, wait, be, drive, renounce, fill
Adverb
A word that is used to describe a verb which tells how, where, or when something is done.
Examples:
carefully, often, very, intelligently, quite, too, rarely, never
Conjunction
A word that is used to join words or groups of words.
Examples:
and, or, but, neither, because, while, since, although
Preposition
A word used indicating the relationship of a noun or pronoun to another word.
Examples:
in, until, of, from, after, under, beyond, across, toward
Interjection
A single word used to express strong emotion.
Examples:
Wow! Ah! Oh! No!