9 Parts of Speech in English - English Grammar Lesson — Transcript

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1. 0:00Hi, I’m Kasia.
2. 0:02Welcome to Oxford Online English!
3. 0:05In this lesson, you can learn about parts of speech in English.
4. 0:08How many parts of speech are there in English?
5. 0:11Can you name them, and explain what they do?
6. 0:16Understanding parts of speech—nouns, verbs, adjectives, and so on—can help you to understand
7. 0:23English sentence structure and how English grammar works.
8. 0:27In this class, you’ll learn the basic information about parts of speech, you’ll see some ways
9. 0:33that parts of speech can be more complicated than you might expect, and you’ll have several
10. 0:38chances to practice!
11. 0:39So, first question: how many parts of speech are there?
12. 0:44Well, I did a Google search, and many of the top results said ‘eight’.
13. 0:50So there must be eight parts of speech in English.
14. 0:54Wrong!
15. 0:55There are nine.
16. 0:56Ah, what are they?
17. 1:02Number one: nouns.
18. 1:04Nouns can be things, animals, or people, like doctor, pencil, tree or cat.
19. 1:10Nouns can also be ideas or abstract things, like idea, happiness, time or money.
20. 1:16Number two: verbs.
21. 1:18Verbs can be actions, like do, run, fly or win.
22. 1:24Verbs can also describe states, like be, love, believe or understand.
23. 1:31Number three: adjectives.
24. 1:34Adjectives describe nouns.
25. 1:37For example: red, big, metal, or beautiful.
26. 1:41Number four: adverbs.
27. 1:44Adverbs can describe verbs, meaning they describe how someone does something.
28. 1:51For example, quickly, loudly, angrily or well.
29. 1:55Adverbs can also describe adjectives, other adverbs, or even whole sentences.
30. 2:01For example, very is an adverb which can describe an adjective—very slow—or another adverb—very
31. 2:10slowly.
32. 2:11Unfortunately or sometimes are adverbs which can be used to add information to a whole
33. 2:17sentence.
34. 2:19For example:
35. 2:20Unfortunately, they missed the train and were late to their own wedding!
36. 2:25Sometimes, I wish I’d made different choices in life.
37. 2:29So, adverbs are a little more complicated.
38. 2:32Here’s a good way to remember it: adjectives and adverbs both describe other words.
39. 2:40They are both used to add information to something else.
40. 2:44Adjectives describe nouns, and adverbs describe everything else: verbs, adjectives, adverbs
41. 2:54and whole sentences.
42. 2:57Number five: pronouns.
43. 3:00Pronouns replace or represent nouns.
44. 3:02For example, I, you, she or they are pronouns which represent different people.
45. 3:09You use pronouns to avoid repeating the same word, or to refer to something when it’s
46. 3:16obvious what you mean.
47. 3:18For example:
48. 3:20How was the weather there?
49. 3:23There is a pronoun which refers to a place.
50. 3:26If you’ve already mentioned the place you’re talking about, you don’t need to say it
51. 3:31again.
52. 3:32Another example:
53. 3:34Give me two, please.
54. 3:36Two is a pronoun which refers to a quantity of something which has already been mentioned.
55. 3:43The person you’re talking to already knows what you’re talking about.
56. 3:48Number six: prepositions.
57. 3:51Prepositions usually go before a noun or noun phrase.
58. 3:56What’s their job?
59. 3:58Prepositions can do two basic things: first, they can add an idea of time, place, or movement
60. 4:08to a noun.
61. 4:10For example:
62. 4:12on Wednesday in the corner
63. 4:18towards the door
64. 4:20Secondly, prepositions can connect other words to a noun, or a pronoun.
65. 4:25For example, think about the verb depend on.
66. 4:29The preposition on connects the verb depend to the object of the verb.
67. 4:34For example:
68. 4:35It depends on the cost.
69. 4:37Usually, the noun or noun phrase goes after the preposition.
70. 4:42However, sometimes the preposition can link to a noun (or pronoun) earlier in the sentence.
71. 4:48For example:
72. 4:49What does it depend on?
73. 4:51Here, on links to the pronoun what.
74. 4:54Conjunctions.
75. 4:57Conjunctions connect two things.
76. 5:00A conjunction can connect two words:
77. 5:03I like cake and ice-cream.
78. 5:06A conjunction can connect two phrases:
79. 5:10Do you want to go now or wait till this afternoon?
80. 5:15You can also use a conjunction to connect two clauses:
81. 5:20Although I’ve been trying to learn for years, I’m still really bad at drawing.
82. 5:26Number eight: determiners
83. 5:28Determiners go before a noun.
84. 5:31They include words like a, the, this or that, which help to specify which noun you’re
85. 5:39talking about.
86. 5:40Words like my, your, his, her, etc. are also determiners.
87. 5:46They specify which noun you’re talking about by saying who something belongs to.
88. 5:53Determiners can also tell you how many of something there are.
89. 5:57Look at three examples:
90. 5:59ten bananas some people
91. 6:02both of my brothers
92. 6:04The words ten, some and both are determiners.
93. 6:08Number nine: interjections
94. 6:12Interjections are different, because they aren’t normally part of a sentence.
95. 6:17Interjections are words or phrases which show how you feel.
96. 6:22For example:
97. 6:23Wow!
98. 6:25Ah, crap!
99. 6:27No way!
100. 6:29So, now you know about the nine parts of speech in English.
101. 6:36Let’s practice!
102. 6:38Look at three sentences.
103. 6:39Each sentence has five words.
104. 6:421.
105. 6:43They told me about it.
106. 6:442.
107. 6:45Look in the big cupboard.
108. 6:473.
109. 6:48Put it there, but carefully.
110. 6:51Can you identify which part of speech each word is?
111. 6:55Pause the video and think about your answers.
112. 7:00How did you do?
113. 7:02Could you identify the parts of speech correctly?
114. 7:05Let’s look at one more.
115. 7:07I’m staying in this evening.
116. 7:10What part of speech are these words?
117. 7:13Think about it.
118. 7:15So, I is a pronoun, am is a verb, and staying is also a verb.
119. 7:21What about in?
120. 7:23Did you say it’s a preposition?
121. 7:25It’s not a preposition; it’s an adverb.
122. 7:28How does this work?
123. 7:30We had the word in in one of the sentences you saw before, and it was a preposition.
124. 7:36So, what’s going on?
125. 7:41Some words can only be one thing.
126. 7:43For example, the words independence or hair can only be nouns.
127. 7:50Believe and destroy can only be verbs.
128. 7:52However, many words can be more than one part of speech.
129. 7:58There are two things happening here.
130. 8:00First, a word can be two different things, which have the same written form and the same
131. 8:06pronunciation.
132. 8:08Think about the word win.
133. 8:10Is it a noun or a verb?
134. 8:13It can be both.
135. 8:15I’m sure they’ll win the game this weekend.
136. 8:18We’ll be hoping for a win in the big game this weekend.
137. 8:22Many words are like this.
138. 8:24Red can be an adjective or a noun.
139. 8:27What do you think about this red for the kitchen?
140. 8:31I like that red top she was wearing.
141. 8:34This is very common: very often, a word with one written form can be two (or more) different
142. 8:41parts of speech.
143. 8:43We told you there are two things happening here; what’s the other?
144. 8:48Sometimes, a word can be different parts of speech depending on its function in the sentence.
145. 8:54Look at two sentences:
146. 8:57I have a few photos of my grandparents.
147. 9:00Sure, you can have a few.
148. 9:02Here’s a question: what part of speech is few in these sentences?
149. 9:09In the first sentence, few is a determiner; in the second, it’s a pronoun.
150. 9:14Can you explain why this is?
151. 9:19Think about what few does in these two sentences.
152. 9:23In the first sentence, few adds a quantity to the noun photos.
153. 9:29It tells us how many photos you have.
154. 9:33This makes it a determiner.
155. 9:36In the second sentence, few replaces a noun.
156. 9:39You don’t know which noun it replaces, but in context, you would understand what the
157. 9:46person meant.
158. 9:47Maybe it was ‘a few biscuits’, or ‘a few pieces of paper.’
159. 9:51We don’t know!
160. 9:53But, you do know that few replaces a noun, which makes it a pronoun.
161. 9:59Another example is the sentence we saw before:
162. 10:02I’m staying in this evening.
163. 10:06Prepositions go with nouns, and connect nouns to other words in the sentence.
164. 10:12In here doesn’t go with a noun, so it can’t be a preposition.
165. 10:17In here means ‘at home’, and it adds information to the verb stay.
166. 10:24What kind of words add information to verbs?
167. 10:28Adverbs!
168. 10:29So, in is an adverb.
169. 10:31Wait a minute, did we ever finish explaining what parts of speech are in this sentence?
170. 10:37You’re right!
171. 10:38We didn’t.
172. 10:39Let’s do it now.
173. 10:41You need to say what parts of speech the words this evening are.
174. 10:47Can you do it?
175. 10:48Maybe you said that this is a determiner, and evening is a noun.
176. 10:52That’s technically correct, but it’s not the best answer.
177. 10:57The best answer is that this evening is an adverb.
178. 11:01How do you explain that?
179. 11:05Until now, you’ve seen single words, and how single words can be nouns, verbs, etc.
180. 11:13However, when you’re thinking about parts of speech, you can’t just think about single
181. 11:20words.
182. 11:21Phrases can also be nouns, verbs, adjectives, and so on.
183. 11:28Let’s do an example:
184. 11:30Add a small spoonful of brown sugar, then turn the heat down and stir the mixture gently.
185. 11:38Think about the first part of this sentence: add a small spoonful of brown sugar.
186. 11:44What parts of speech do we have here?
187. 11:47Of course, you can go through it word by word.
188. 11:50You can say, add is a verb, a is a determiner, small is an adjective and so on.
189. 11:57But, is that the most useful way of looking at it?
190. 12:00It makes more sense to see this as a verb—add—and a noun—a small spoonful of brown sugar.
191. 12:10The noun is made up of several parts of speech: determiners, adjectives, prepositions and
192. 12:18nouns, but together they have one meaning.
193. 12:22These words refer to one thing.
194. 12:26You can analyse a sentence in several different layers.
195. 12:30So, you can see a small spoonful of brown sugar as six individual words, or one noun
196. 12:38phrase.
197. 12:39You could also see it as three parts: a determiner—a small spoonful, a preposition—of, and a
198. 12:47noun—brown sugar.
199. 12:49Confused?
200. 12:50We understand!
201. 12:52You want to know the answer.
202. 12:54You want to know which way is ‘correct’.
203. 12:58There isn’t one ‘correct’ way to say this.
204. 13:02There are different perspectives.
205. 13:04A better question is: which perspective makes more sense?
206. 13:09In this sentence, a small spoonful of brown sugar refers to one thing in the world.
207. 13:15So it makes sense to think of it as one part of speech in the sentence.
208. 13:21What about the second part of the sentence?
209. 13:23How would you analyse the parts of speech?
210. 13:26As you saw before, there isn’t one right answer, but here’s a suggestion.
211. 13:32The sentence contains a conjunction—then, and then two verb phrases linked with the
212. 13:38conjunction and.
213. 13:41This makes sense because the sentence is telling you to do two things: turn the heat down and
214. 13:48stir the mixture gently.
215. 13:50So, it makes sense to see turn the heat down as one part of speech, because it’s telling
216. 13:57you do to one thing.
217. 13:59Let’s put these ideas together.
218. 14:02First, when you think about parts of speech, you can’t just memorise information.
219. 14:07You have to look at each sentence individually, and think about what each word is doing.
220. 14:15Secondly, always think about what the sentence means in the real world.
221. 14:21Sentences aren’t abstract things; they refer to real people, real things and real actions.
222. 14:29There is always more than one way to analyse the parts of speech in a sentence: choose
223. 14:34the way that makes sense based on what the sentence is telling you about real life!
224. 14:39Let’s do a more challenging practice exercise so you can see these ideas in action.
225. 14:47Look at three sentences:
226. 14:50Amazing!
227. 14:51It’s way better than I ever thought it would be.
228. 14:54She was an amazing clinician, who came up with many innovative ways to treat patients.
229. 15:00I don’t believe it!
230. 15:01How would you analyse the parts of speech in these sentences?
231. 15:06Think about the ideas we talked about in the last section.
232. 15:09Does it make sense to break the sentences into individual words, or is it better to
233. 15:15group words into phrases?
234. 15:18Pause the video and think about your ideas.
235. 15:21Ready?
236. 15:23Here are our answers.
237. 15:25You can pause the video again to look at these in more detail.
238. 15:31Notice how the same word can be different parts of speech in different sentences.
239. 15:37For example, amazing is an interjection in one sentence, and an adjective in another.
240. 15:45Notice also the different layers of analysis.
241. 15:48For example, look at the phrase many innovative ways.
242. 15:52You can see this as one noun phrase, or as a determiner plus a noun phrase, or as three
243. 16:00individual parts: a determiner, an adjective and a noun.
244. 16:05Which is correct?
245. 16:07They all are!
246. 16:08Choose the perspective which makes more sense to you.
247. 16:12Want more practice with this topic?
248. 16:14Check out the full version of this lesson on our website: Oxford Online English dot
249. 16:18com.
250. 16:19You can practice with a quiz to check your understanding of parts of speech in English.
251. 16:23Thanks for watching!
252. 16:25See you next time!