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Easy English Grammar Guide

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  English Speaking - Basic English Training

Table of Content

1. Introduction
   1.1. What is Grammar?
      1.1.1. Noun
      1.1.2. Pronoun
      1.1.3. Adjective
      1.1.4. Verbs
      1.1.5. Adverbs
      1.1.6. Preposition
      1.1.7. Conjunction
      1.1.8. Interjection
   1.2. What is a sentence?
      1.2.1. Kinds of sentences
   1.3. When to use the capital letter?
   1.4. Important Sentence Structure
   1.5. Voice and Tense
      1.5.1. Simple Present Tense
      1.5.2. The Present Continuous Tense
      1.5.3. The Simple Past Tense
      1.5.4. The Past Continuous Tense
      1.5.5. The Future Tense
      1.5.6. The Future continuous
      1.5.7. Present perfect
      1.5.8. Present perfect continuous
      1.5.9. Past perfect
      1.5.10. Past perfect continuous
      1.5.11. Future perfect
      1.5.12. Future perfect continuous
      1.5.13. Using Either …. Or ; neither …nor
      1.5.14. Using Will-Shall;would-Should
      1.5.15. Using IF

Grammar is a rule about a language. For example, English has eight parts of speech.

Every Name is a noun

Example:
(Street, town, man, watch, Harry, Friends)

The King is brave  - King is the noun

In place of noun the pronoun stands.

Example:
(He, she, it, they, that etc)

• She is tall
• He is brave

Words that tell us more about nouns

Example:
(Good boy, happy girl, and bright room)

• Ravi is a good boy

Verb is nothing but an action, something done

Example:  Read, write, and jump, run

• Ravi went to the cinema  -“Went”
• Raja met Vimal in the store– “met”

Here the verb can be classified as present tense verb, past tense verb and past participle verb. 
 

Get a good book and remember the verbs or refer to the book when you face difficulty to form a sentence.

Words that tell us more about verb.

Example: quickly, slowly, badly, well, early

• Rajesh went to school early

This shows the relation between two things.

Example:

• I once studied in that school  - Here “in” is preposition
• I gave my pen to Kumar – Here “to” is preposition

This joins sentences, words,
Example:

• Rama and Lakshmi went to the market. Here “and” is the conjunction
• I shall help you in case you need it. – Here “in case” is the conjunction.

This comes with exclamation marks and shows the feeling or surprises.

Example:

• Oh! What a nice saree
• My God! What an accident
• Well done! Try to get the first rank next time

A sentence is a group of words that you use to say something. It must have a subject and a verb, but it may or may not have an object.

A written sentence usually begins with a capital letter and ends with full stop.

There are four kinds of sentences.

A declarative sentence makes a statement.

Example:

• The children are swimming
• The telephone rang
• Everyone sat down

The interrogative sentence asks a question.

 Example:

• Where are the twins?
• Are you going shopping today?
• What is your name?
• What is Ram doing?

An exclamatory sentence is in the form of an exclamation.

• What lovely weather!
• The silly boy!
• How stupid I am!

The imperative sentence gives an order.

•  Sit down.
• Tell me the truth.
• Speak up.
• Come back.

• First letter in a sentence:

Example:

• The dog is coming.
• Come here!

• You always use a capital letter for the word I

Example:

• I am eight years old
• Ravi and I are good friends

• Use the capital letter for names of people

Example:

• Rajagopal, Vignesh

• Use the capital letter for names of places.

Example:

• National Museum, Queen’s Road, India

• Use the capital letter for festivals, holidays, days of the week and month of the year

Example:

• New Year’s Day, Christmas, May, July, Monday

There are 12 active voice types and 8 passive voice types.
They are:

The simple present tense tells you that something is always true or that some action is done as a habit.

Example:

• The Sun rises in the East.
• Uncle Raman wears glasses.
• Ducks love water.
• The children go to school by bus
• Father takes the dog for a walk every morning.

Am, Is and Are:

The words am, is, are are also verbs, but they are not action words. They are the simple present tense of the verb be.

You use am with the pronoun I, and you use is with the pronouns he, she and it. You use are with the pronouns you, we and  they.

• I am Rajesh. I am not Rajesh.
• I am here. I am not here. Am I not here?
• He is my father. He is a doctor.  Is he a doctor?
• She is Miss Ramya. She is a teacher. Is she a teacher?
• It is my duty. It is not my job. Is it not my duty?
• You are my friend. You are not my enemy. Are you my friend?
• We are going together. We are not going together. Are we not going together?
• They are good friends. They are not good friends. Are they good friends?

Here is the table       to help you remember the use of am, is and are:

Learn these short forms:

You use aren’t as a short form of am not only in question. For example: you can say

I am taller than you, aren’t I?
But you say:

1.5.2.The Present Continuous Tense

You use the present continuous tense to talk about actions in the present, or things that are going on or happening now.

Example:

• I am playing chess with my friend.
• She is riding a horse.
• He is walking in the park.
• What are they doing?
• They are playing cricket.
• What is happening?
• Why are you not doing your homework?

Have and Has

The verb have and has  are used to say what people own or possess. You also  use them to talk about the things that people do, and things that people get, like illness. They are the simple present tense of the verb have.

Example:

• Ranjith has a pen.
• He has a lot of stamps.
• She has long hair.
• We have art lessons on Mondays.
• Have another try.
• Ramya often has rise for lunch.

You use the simple past tense to talk about things that happened in the past. You also used it to talk about things that happened in stories.

Example:

• I bought a new camera last night.
• Raj learnt to play cricket very quickly.
• We drove to the park last weekend.
• Yesterday Dad took me to the museum.
• Who invented the computer?
• Dinosaurs lived millions of years ago.

Ed verb

The simple past tense of most verbs ends in –ed. These verbs are regular verbs.

Example:

Example:

• We visited our uncle last week.
• She asked me yesterday.

Irregular Verbs

 The simple past form of some verbs does not end in –ed. Such verbs are called irregular verbs.

Example:

• I put some sugar in my coffee.
• Dad read to us last night.

But most irregular verbs change to a different form for their simple past tense.

Example:

• I lost my pen on the bus.
• We sold our car last week.
• I heard a noise in the night.

1.5.4.The Past Continuous Tense

You use the past continuous tense to talk about action that were going on, or happening at a certain moment in the past.

Example:

• Ravi was waiting for the bus when Rajesh passed by.
• The twins were fighting in the corner.
• Mummy was cooking dinner when I came home

Be form verb:

Example:

• I was reading when Ravi knocked the door.
• We were playing tennis when we heard the news
• You were playing tennis when we came to your village
• He was reading storybook when we went to his house.
• She was doing homework when it was raining
• They were coming to our house when I called them on cell phone.

You use the future tense for things that have not happened yet, but are going to happen.

You use the verb shall and will as helping verbs or auxiliary verbs to form the future tense.

Example:

• I shall be eight years old next year.
• The weatherman says it will rain this afternoon.
• We will finish the job next week.
• You will be sick if you eat too much.
• I hope it won’t rain tomorrow.
• Dad will be back for dinner.
• He will make lots of friends at his new school.

You use the future continuous tense to talk about action that will be happening in the future.

Example:

• I will be leaving this place next week
• We shall be spending our holidays in our village.
• She will be continuing her studies in the same college for two more years.

You will use the present perfect tense  to talk about happenings in the past that explains or affects the present. You use the verbs have  and  has  as helping verbs or auxiliary verbs to form the present perfect tense.

Have + past participle 
Has   + past participle   (third person singular)

Example:

• Ravi has scored two goals.
• Has Ravi scored two goals?
• I have found my key.
• Have you found your key?

The action started in the past and it is still continuing in the present.

Example:

• He has been reading.
• They have been singing.
• I have been studying English since January.
• Have you been studying Since January?

To indicate two action that happened in the past in the sequence. The actions completed one after another.

Example:

• When we reached the theatre, the picture had already begun.
• Before you had visited London, you came to India.
• Raman was anxious to know what had happened to his brother.
• When we woke up in the morning, we realized that it had rained heavily the previous night.

To indicate two actions that happened in the past in sequence. One action was happening (Continuous) along with other action.

Example:

• He was out of breath because he had been running.
• When the boys came into the house their clothes were dirty because they had been playing.
• How long had you been waiting when the bus finally came?

 The action completed in future at certain timeline/event or before.

Example:

• I shall have met her by this evening.
• By next year we shall have finished our studies.
• We shall have sold all our goods by the end of this month.
• You will have seen many more films by the end of the holidays.
• Rajesh will have returned by eight o’ clock tonight.
• Before I come back, they will have finished their work.

The action will be happening in the future at a specified time.

Example:

• We shall have been selling all the cloths by the end of this week.
• By the end of this year, Rajesh will have been finishing his work.
• He will have been writing his 50th poem by the end of March.

Either… or : this or that
Neither …nor: not both 

• My father likes to eat chapattis or he likes to eat puri  -regular sentence.

With Either…or:

• My father likes to eat either chapatti or puri
• The chief minister will visit Trichy either on Friday or on Saturday.

Neither …nor:

1.I do not want a pencil. I do not want a pen.

Using Neither ..Nor:

1.I want neither pencil nor pen.

Will – It will happen surely or to specify a confirmed one.

• Tomorrow will be Monday.
• By next week we will have finished half the construction of this building.

Would is the  past tense of will.

• He would always come here for a cup of coffee.

Shall- This is used to convey our opinion.

• I shall pay you tomorrow.
• Shall we start now?
• Shall I get a taxi?

 Should is the past tense of shall.

• Children should work hard to get a first class.

It is mainly used in a conditional sentence.

• If he comes to see us tomorrow, we can tell him the whole story.
• If you are passing through our street, you must come to our house.
• If I were you, I would not do it.
• If you have not finished the first part of the book, why are you reading the second?