parts of speech in english grammar with exercises pdf

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Parts of speech worksheets terms of use, prepositions worksheets, below you will find our full list of printable prepositions worksheets to be used by teachers at home or in school. just click on a link to open a printable pdf version of the desired worksheet. we hope you find them useful..

• Identifying Prepositions Worksheet

Explanation, examples, and practice identifying prepositions in sentences.

• Identifying Prepositions Worksheet Answers

Answers to the Identifying Prepositions worksheet.

• Prepositions of Time Worksheet

This worksheet includes a table outlining the various prepositions of time and their usages. Practice involves using prepositions of time to explain the schedules of color characters in the worksheet.

• Prepositions of Time Worksheet Answers

Answers to the Prepositions of Time Worksheet.

• Prepositions of Place Worksheet 1

The worksheet provides practice using images to explain the positions of people and objects in relation to one another.

• Prepositions of Place Worksheet Answers 1

Answers to the Prepositions of Place Worksheet 1

• Prepositions of Place Worksheet 2

The worksheet includes tables outlining the various prepositions of place (location). Practice involves using prepositions of place to explain the positions of color objects in relation to one another.

• Prepositions of Place Worksheet Answers 2

Answers to the Prepositions of Place Worksheet 2

Nouns worksheets.

• Identifying Nouns Worksheet

Explanation, examples, and practice identifying nouns in sentences.

• Identifying Nouns Worksheet Answers

Answers to the Nouns Worksheet.

• Identifying Nouns Worksheet - Common vs. Proper

Explanation, examples, and practice identifying common vs. proper nouns in sentences.

• Identifying Nouns Worksheet - Common vs. Proper Answers

Answers to the Identifying Nouns worksheet.

Adjectives worksheets, this section contains printable worksheets on adjectives..

• Identifying Adjectives Worksheet

Explanation, examples, and practice identifying adjectives in sentences.

• Identifying Adjectives Worksheet Answers

Answers to the Identifying Adjectives worksheet

• Order of Adjectives Worksheet

Explanation, examples, and practice putting adjectives in the correct order.

• Comparative Adjectives Worksheet

Explanation, examples, and practice using comparative adjectives in sentences.

• Comparative Adjectives Worksheet Answers

Answers to the Comparative Adjectives worksheet

• Superlative Adjectives Worksheet

Explanation, examples, and practice using superlative adjectives in sentences.

• Superlative Adjectives Worksheet Answers

Answers to the Superlative Adjectives Worksheet.

Verbs worksheets, this section contains printable worksheets on verbs..

• Identifying Verbs Worksheet

Explanation, examples, and practice identifying verbs in sentences.

• Identifying Verbs Worksheet Answers

Adverbs Worksheets

This section contains printable worksheets on adverbs..

• Identifying Adverbs Worksheet

Explanation, examples, and practice identifying adverbs in sentences.

Answers to the identifying adverbs worksheet..

• Frequency Adverbs Worksheet

Explanation, examples, and practice identifying and using frequency adverbs in sentences. Practice involves rewriting sentences according to percentages labeled on a frequency adverbs chart. This is an excellent worksheet!

• Frequency Adverbs Worksheet Answers

Answers to the Frequency Adverbs worksheet.

Conjunctions worksheets, this section contains printable worksheets on conjunctions..

• Introduction to Conjunctions Worksheet

A brief introduction to conjunctions.

• Introduction to Conjunctions Worksheet Answers

Answers to the Introduction to Conjunctions worksheet.

• Coordinating Conjunctions Worksheet

Explanation, examples, and practice using coordinating conjunctions.

• Subordinating Conjunctions Worksheet

Explanation, examples, and practice using subordinating conjunctions.

• Correlative Conjunctions Worksheet

Explanation, examples, and practice using correlative conjunctions.

Pronouns worksheets, this section contains printable worksheets on pronouns..

• Introduction to Pronouns Worksheet

A brief introduction to pronouns.

• Introduction to Pronouns Worksheet Answers

Answers to the Introduction to Pronouns worksheet.

• Demonstrative Pronouns Worksheet

Explanation, examples, and practice using demonstrative pronouns.

• Subjective Pronouns Worksheet

Explanation, examples, and practice using subjective pronouns in sentences.

Interjections worksheets, this section contains printable worksheets on interjections..

• Identifying Interjections Worksheet

Explanation, examples, and practice identifying interjections in sentences.

• Identifying Interjections Worksheet Answers

Answers to the Identifying Interjections worksheet.

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Parts of Speech (Mixed)

On these worksheets, students will determine the correct parts of speech for words. (For worksheets on individual parts of speech, please visit our grammar worksheets page.)

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Parts of Speech: Activities and Projects

Browse our complete collection of grammar worksheets. Topics include nouns, verbs, pronouns, prepositional phrases, subjects/predicates, adjectives, adverbs, and more.

Learn to diagram simple and compound sentences with these printable worksheets.

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Reading Worksheets, Spelling, Grammar, Comprehension, Lesson Plans

Parts of Speech Worksheets

Parts of speech refer to the functions of words in a sentence. There are eight general classifications for words: nouns, pronouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, prepositions, conjunctions, and interjections. Students gain a better understanding of grammar and sentence structure by understanding these basic components. Below are the categories for the parts of speech. To view the grammar worksheets in each category, simply click on the title. You may use them for free at home or in class. After viewing our parts of speech activities please check out all of our grammar worksheets .

Adjectives Worksheets

Adverb Worksheets

Here you’ll find helpful adverb worksheets to use at home or in the classroom!

Conjunction Worksheets

Free, printable conjunction worksheets to help develop strong skills in grammar and language. Learn about the conjunction and the different types of a conjunction.

Interjection Worksheets

Noun Worksheets

Preposition Worksheets

Pronoun Worksheets

Verb Worksheets

• English Grammar
• Grammar Exercises
• Parts Of Speech Exercises

Parts of Speech Exercises with Answers

Every topic in English grammar requires good understanding and a lot of practice. A thorough knowledge of the various grammatical components and their application is necessary to master the English language . This article provides you with a few practice exercises for parts of speech . Check it out.

Table of Contents

Exercise 1 – identify the adverb, exercise 2 – use the appropriate pronoun.

• Exercise 3 –  Underline the Preposition

Exercise 4 – Identify the Part of Speech

Frequently asked questions on parts of speech exercises.

Give below are a few exercises. Try them out and assess your understanding of the different parts of speech.

Go through the given sentences and identify the adverb.

• We have seen this before.
• The postman comes to her daily.
• The man repeated the same thing thrice.
• Your friend called again.
• Please walk forward.
• The horse ran away.
• My brother writes clearly.
• The army fought bravely.
• The mangoes are almost ripe.
• Are you keeping well?

Fill the blanks with correct pronouns.

• Shyam is my brother. ___ study in the same class
• Between Ritu and me, __ am the younger one.
• Do you see this book with my name on it? It is ___.
• Miss Gwen is our new class teacher. ___ is very sweet.
• While cutting vegetables, Mitu cut ___.
• The jury got divided among ___.
• I’m coming too. Please wait for __.
• Nobody but ___ was present.
• ___ book is better than the other.
• Is the mug ___? It was on your table.

Exercise 3 – Underline the Preposition

Identify the prepositions in the following passage.

Goldilocks used to live with her parents in a cabin near the forest. One day, she decided to go for a walk. She strolled down the lane that led to the forest and came across a cottage. Feeling intrigued, she decided to check whose house it was. She knocked on the door, but no one answered. Then she decided to go in and check. Once she came into the cottage, she saw three soup bowls kept on the table. Feeling hungry, she drank the soup out of the smallest bowl. She saw a flight of stairs that led to a room above. She decided to go and see the rooms. On reaching the rooms, she saw there were three beds. Feeling sleepy with all the walking and hot soup, she decided to take a nap and slept on the smallest bed. When she woke up, she saw three bears standing in front of her, and the smallest bear among them crying loudly. Terrified, she started screaming and ran past the bear family to reach her home.

Goldilocks used to live with her parents in a cabin near the forest. One day, she decided to go for a walk. She strolled  down the lane that led to the forest and came across a cottage. Feeling intrigued, she decided to check whose house it was. She knocked on the door, but no one answered. Then she decided to go in and check. Once she came into the cottage, she saw three soup bowls kept on the table. Feeling hungry, she drank the soup out of the smallest bowl. She saw a flight of stairs that led to a room above . She decided to go and see the rooms. On reaching the rooms, she saw there were three beds. Feeling sleepy with all the walking and hot soup, she decided to take a nap and slept on the smallest bed. When she woke up, she saw three bears standing in front of her, and the smallest bear among them crying loudly. Terrified, she started screaming and ran past the bear family to reach her home.

Go through the following sentences and identify the part of speech of the underlined words.

• Namitha is not coming today.
• My mom will be leaving to Bangalore tomorrow .
• The teacher asked the students to stand.
• He is my brother.
• There is a cat under the table.
• The clothes did not dry as it was raining all night.
• Sheena and her sister dance well .
• I am wearing a green dress for the party.
• Oh ! That is really sad.
• She is coming with me.
• Verb, adverb
• Preposition
• Conjunction
• Conjunction, adverb
• Interjection

What are parts of speech?

Words are classified into different classes called parts of speech depending on their usage.

What comes under parts of speech?

Noun, adjective, pronoun, verb, adverb, preposition, conjunction and interjection come under parts of speech.

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Parts of Speech Exercises – English Grammar

Parts of speech Exercises in English grammar are available for practice in PDF. Parts of speech quiz questions with multiple choice answers, fill in the blanks and paragraph questions. Get these English grammar exercises free in PDF. Solving these exercises can help you improve your English.

We know that there are eight parts of speech in English Grammar; Noun, Pronoun, Adjective, Verb, Adverb, Preposition, Conjunction, and Interjection.

We have written the parts of speech exercises related to these parts of Speech in this post.

Page Contents

Parts of Speech Exercises

We know that there are eight parts of speech in English grammar. If you have studied all parts of speech, check the exercises given to review your knowledge.

Read here about Parts of Speech with examples

Parts of Speech Exercise – 1

Exercise – 1 Find out the correct part of speech of the following italicized words:

• The girl is not clever .
• What do you want?
• The cow is grazing in the field.
• She wants to eat an apple .
• He has been learning music for two months.
• How much oil have you used?
• People speak English all over the world.
• They cannot jump here.
• Today she is not in the office
• Edison  invented the electric bulb.
• How do you know the truth .
• It may be true.
• Honesty is the best policy.
• India is the seventh largest country in the world.
• It is very hot today.
• There is a bridge across the river.
• She will have washed her clothes by 2 o’clock.
• I am your teacher.
• Kate is not honest.
• What do you do on Sunday.
• Hurrah! We have won the match.
• Ram and Shyam are fast friends.
• The cat jumped upon the table.
• Mohan drove his car slowly .
• The birds flew in the sky.
• English Grammar Rules and Exercises PDF
• Parts of Speech Workbook PDF
• Noun Definition and Examples
• Pronoun Definition and Examples

Parts of Speech Exercise – 2

Identify the parts of speech of each italicized word in the following sentences:

• You may sit here .
• He fled where his pursuers could not follow.
• He behaves badly .
• I shall punish you because you have done this.
• I spoke to his brother.
• She is too ugly.
• He finished first though he began late.
• Wait here till I return.
• He has seen this picture recently.
• Everybody expect good news .
• He doesn’t help me in trouble .
• The doctor gave me a tablet..
• I do it because I choose to.
• If I make a promise, I keep it,
• You will pass if you work hard.
• He can’t accept his mistake .
• The tiger runs fast.
• I do not know where I am.
• How clever you are?
• I could swim when I was six years old.
• She missed her train yesterday .
• A team of players from India has arrived.
• Tom had a little lamb whose fleece was white as snow.
• The postman brought the letter.
• The house that you bought belongs to my uncle.
• That boy cried for help.
• I have lost my purse today.
• It has been raining outside since morning.
• The boy stood on the bench to see the sky.
• They never fail who die in a great cause.
• What is Tense?
• Use of is, am and are
• Noun Exercises
• Pronoun Exercises
• Adjective Exercises
• Verb Exercises
• Tense Exercises

Exercise – 3

Here is exercise 3 of parts of speech. Name the part of speech of each underlined word in the following sentences:

• The hunter shot an arrow into the air.
• The train is not moving now .
• The child has been running since morning.
• They will sleep on the floor.
• Some boys helped the old woman.
• I had never seen such a beautiful place before.
• We shall go home tomorrow .
• Do not go there.
• He has a big car.
• The teacher asked the students to write an email.
• You have not read a book yet.

Answers of exercise 1

Exercise – 1 Parts of Speech

• Clever – Adjective
• You – Pronoun
• Cow – Noun
• Apple – Noun
• Music – Noun
• Oil – Noun
• English – Noun
• Jump – Verb
• Today – Adverb
• Edison – Proper Noun
• Truth – Abstract Noun
• May – Modal Verbs
• Best – Adjective
• India – Proper Noun
• Hot – Adjective
• Across – Preposition
• Clothes – Noun
• Your – Possessive pronoun
• Is – Linking Verb
• On – Preposition
• Hurrah! – Interjection
• And – Conjunction
• Upon – Preposition
• Slowly – Adverb
• Flew – Verb
• Examples of Present Indefinite Tense
• Examples of 100 Nouns
• Simple Present Tense Rules and Examples
• Present Continuous Tense
• Present Perfect Tense
• Present perfect continuous tense

Exercise – 2 Answers

• Here – Adverb
• Pursuers – Noun
• Badly – Adverb
• Punish – Verb
• Spoke – Verb
• Too – Adverb
• First – Adjective
• Till – Conjunction
• This – Demonstrative Pronoun
• Everybody – Indefinite Pronoun
• Trouble – Noun
• Me – Pronoun
• Because – Adverb
• Promise – Noun
• Will – Modal Auxiliary
• Can’t – Modal Auxiliary
• The – Definite Article
• Where – Adverb
• How – Interrogative adjective
• Six – Adjective
• Yesterday – Adverb
• Team – Noun
• Had – Auxiliary Verb (form of to have)
• Brought – Verb
• That – Relative Pronoun
• For – Preposition
• Purse – Noun
• Outside – Adverb
• Bench – Noun
• Never – Adverb

See also these Grammar Exercises:

• Free Parts of speech Exercise 1
• Exercise of part of speech 2
• A/An and the exercises 
• Common and Proper Noun Exercises
• Collective Noun Exercises
• Material and Abstract noun exercises
• Recent Posts

• Use of Has to and Have to – Rules, Structure and Examples - August 10, 2023
• Examples of Present Perfect Tense (Sentences) - August 1, 2023
• Pronoun – Definition and Types of Pronouns, Rules and Examples - July 30, 2023

13 thoughts on “Parts of Speech Exercises – English Grammar”

I want exercise 3 answers

I Want exercise ~3 answer

where can i find the answers of exercise 3 ??

Can i get the answers of exercise 3…

Assalamualaikum ma’am, please give me…EX NUM : (3) answer please.

In exercise 1 question number 8 *jump* is not a noun it is a verb

Ex 3 Ans: 1. Arrow- Noun 2.Now- Adverb 3. Since- Preposition 4. Sleep- Verb 5. old- Adjective 6.never- Adverb 7. Tomorrow- Adverb 8. go- Verb 9. Has- verb 10. to write- verb 11. read- verb

I need more exercise grammar english

More exercise about parts of speach

Past perfect examples

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Exercise 1: parts of speech

(practise determining english parts of speech), exercise on parts of speech – drop-down (difficulty: 2 of 5 – rather easy).

Select the correct part of speech (word category or class) for the highlighted word in each sentence from the drop-down list. You need to differentiate between adjectives, nouns, verbs, and prepositions . Consider the corresponding rules and explanations of the various parts of speech .

• Example: “Would you like a cup of coffee?” → noun

Check your results with the button below after you have finished.

• Sam is playing football . →   adjective noun preposition verb
• My name is Johnathan. →   adjective noun preposition verb
• The girl has brown hair. →   adjective noun preposition verb
• Do you like sports? →   adjective noun preposition verb
• The house at the end of the street is very big. →   adjective noun preposition verb
• The hotel has got a beautiful view of the valley. →   adjective noun preposition verb
• There is a glass on the table. →   adjective noun preposition verb
• We had so much fun at the party. →   adjective noun preposition verb
• The neighbors have a swimming pool in their garden. →   adjective noun preposition verb
• Tom always reads a book before he goes to bed. →   adjective noun preposition verb

Further exercises and explanations related to ‘English parts of speech’

The following exercises and explanations relate to the topic ‘ Parts of speech (word classes/categories) in English grammar’ and also help you learn:

• Nouns in English grammar
• Verbs in English grammar
• Adjectives in English grammar
• Prepositions (general considerations)
• Exercise 2: parts of speech

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Free English Lessons

Parts of speech in english – video.

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In this lesson, you can learn about parts of speech in English.

How many parts of speech are there in english can you name them, and explain what they do, understanding parts of speech —nouns, verbs, adjectives, and so on—can help you to understand english sentence structure and how english grammar works., in this class, you’ll learn the basic information about parts of speech, you’ll see some ways that parts of speech can be more complicated than you might expect, and you’ll have several chances to practice, quiz: parts of speech in english.

Now test your understanding of the different parts of speech by trying this quiz. There are 20 questions, which get harder as you go through it!

When you have finished, click ‘View Questions’ to see all the correct answers and read the explanations. There are links to further study resources in the explanations.

Quiz Summary

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That’s an excellent score and this quiz is extremely difficult! Congratulations!

A perfect score on an incredibly difficult quiz! Congratulations!

1 . Question

For the first five questions, answer true or false.

True or false: a word can be different parts of speech depending on its function and meaning in the sentence.

Review part three of the lesson if you need help with this one.

2 . Question

True or false: a noun can be a word or a phrase.

3 . Question

True or false: if a word can be a noun, it can only be a noun.

4 . Question

True or false: when analysing parts of speech, you don’t need to think about what the sentence means.

5 . Question

True or false: articles (‘the’, ‘a’), demonstratives (‘this’, ‘that’), quantifiers (‘some’, ‘few’) and possessive adjectives (‘your’, ‘their’) are all determiners.

Remember that determiners specify the noun you’re referring to. Do all these words do this?

6 . Question

For the next five questions, choose the part of speech described.

What part of speech can be an action or a state?

• Interjections
• Conjunctions

‘Run’ is an action and ‘understand’ is a state.

7 . Question

What part of speech can describe verbs, adjectives, adverbs or whole sentences?

• Prepositions

8 . Question

What part of speech represents or replaces nouns?

9 . Question

What part of speech expresses an emotion or can be used to react to something?

10 . Question

Which part of speech doesn’t indicate something about a noun?

• Determiners

11 . Question

For the next five questions, match the words in the sentence with the parts of speech.

“He slept badly.”

Sort elements

12 . question.

Match the words in the sentence with the parts of speech.

“She has bought a second-hand car.”

• noun phrase

This time, you’re not analysing each word but the function of word groups and phrases in the sentence.

13 . Question

“Um, can you stop making so much noise, please?”

• ‘um’ and ‘please’
• 'can' and 'stop'
• 'you'
• 'making so much noise'

14 . Question

“Is this your bag or mine?”

• conjunction
• (possessive) pronoun

15 . Question

“Hey! Give his new watch back to him.”

• interjection
• preposition

16 . Question

For the last five questions, tick all the words that are correct.

Which words can be nouns?

You need to choose three answers.

17 . Question

Which words can be adverbs?

Only one word here is not an adverb.

18 . Question

Which words can be determiners?

This time there are two correct answers.

19 . Question

Which words can be more than one part of speech?

Two answers are correct; one of the others doesn’t even exist!

20 . Question

Which words are conjunctions?

• nevertheless

This is a deliberately difficult question to end with! A conjunction must be followed by a noun (or noun phrase) and then a verb, with no commas.

So, first question: how many parts of speech are there?

Well, we did a Google search, and many of the top results said ‘eight’. So there must be eight parts of speech in English.

Wrong! There are nine.

So, what are they?

1. Guide to Parts of Speech in English

Number one: nouns. Nouns can be things, animals, or people, like doctor, pencil, tree or cat.

Nouns can also be ideas or abstract things, like idea, happiness, time or money.

Number two: verbs. Verbs can be actions, like do, run, fly or win.

Verbs can also describe states, like be, love, believe or understand.

Number three: adjectives. Adjectives describe nouns. For example: red, big, metal, or beautiful.

Number four: adverbs . Adverbs can describe verbs, meaning they describe how someone does something. For example, quickly, loudly, angrily or well.

Adverbs can also describe adjectives, other adverbs, or even whole sentences. For example, very is an adverb which can describe an adjective— very slow —or another adverb— very slowly.

Unfortunately or sometimes are adverbs which can be used to add information to a whole sentence.

For example:

• Unfortunately, they missed the train and were late to their own wedding!
• Sometimes, I wish I’d made different choices in life.

So, adverbs are a little more complicated. Here’s a good way to remember it: adjectives and adverbs both describe other words. They are both used to add information to something else.

Adjectives describe nouns, and adverbs describe everything else: verbs, adjectives, adverbs and whole sentences.

Number five: pronouns.

Pronouns replace or represent nouns. For example, I, you, she or they are pronouns which represent different people.

You use pronouns to avoid repeating the same word, or to refer to something when it’s obvious what you mean.

• How was the weather there?

There is a pronoun which refers to a place. If you’ve already mentioned the place you’re talking about, you don’t need to say it again.

Another example:

• Give me two, please.

Two is a pronoun which refers to a quantity of something which has already been mentioned. The person you’re talking to already knows what you’re talking about.

Number six: prepositions.

Prepositions usually go before a noun or noun phrase. What’s their job?

Prepositions can do two basic things: first, they can add an idea of time, place, or movement to a noun. For example:

• on Wednesday
• in the corner
• towards the door

Secondly, prepositions can connect other words to a noun, or a pronoun.

For example, think about the verb depend on. The preposition on connects the verb depend to the object of the verb. For example:

• It depends on the cost.

Usually, the noun or noun phrase goes after the preposition.

However, sometimes the preposition can link to a noun (or pronoun) earlier in the sentence. For example:

• What does it depend on?

Here, on links to the pronoun what.

Number seven: conjunctions.

Conjunctions connect two things. A conjunction can connect two words:

• I like cake and ice-cream.

A conjunction can connect two phrases:

• Do you want to go now or wait till this afternoon?

You can also use a conjunction to connect two clauses:

• Although I’ve been trying to learn for years, I’m still really bad at drawing.

Number eight: determiners

Determiners go before a noun. They include words like a, the, this or that, which help to specify which noun you’re talking about.

Words like my, your, his, her, etc. are also determiners. They specify which noun you’re talking about by saying who something belongs to.

Determiners can also tell you how many of something there are. Look at three examples:

• ten bananas
• some people
• both of my brothers

The words ten, some and both are determiners.

Number nine: interjections

Interjections are different, because they aren’t normally part of a sentence.

Interjections are words or phrases which show how you feel. For example:

So, now you know about the nine parts of speech in English.

2. Practice with Parts of Speech in English

Let’s practice! Look at three sentences. Each sentence has five words.

• They told me about it.
• Look in the big cupboard.
• Put it there, but carefully.

Can you identify which part of speech each word is? Pause the video and think about your answers.

How did you do? Could you identify the parts of speech correctly?

Let’s look at one more.

• I’m staying in this evening.

What part of speech are these words? Think about it.

So, I is a pronoun, am is a verb, and staying is also a verb.

What about in? Did you say it’s a preposition?

It’s not a preposition; it’s an adverb.

How does this work? We had the word in in one of the sentences you saw before, and it was a preposition.

So, what’s going on?

3. The Same Word Can be More than One Part of Speech

Some words can only be one thing.

For example, the words independence or hair can only be nouns.

Believe and destroy can only be verbs.

However, many words can be more than one part of speech.

There are two things happening here.

First, a word can be two different things, which have the same written form and the same pronunciation.

Think about the word win. Is it a noun or a verb?

It can be both.

• I’m sure they’ll win the game this weekend.
• We’ll be hoping for a win in the big game this weekend.

Many words are like this. Another example: red can be an adjective or a noun.

• What do you think about this red for the kitchen?
• I like that red top she was wearing.

This is very common: very often, a word with one written form can be two (or more) different parts of speech.

We told you there are two things happening here; what’s the other?

Sometimes, a word can be different parts of speech depending on its function in the sentence.

Look at two sentences:

• I have a few photos of my grandparents.
• Sure, you can have a few.

Here’s a question: what part of speech is few in these sentences?

In the first sentence, few is a determiner; in the second, it’s a pronoun.

Can you explain why this is?

Think about what few does in these two sentences.

In the first sentence, few adds a quantity to the noun photos. It tells us how many photos you have. This makes it a determiner.

In the second sentence, few replaces a noun. You don’t know which noun it replaces, but in context, you would understand what the person meant.

Maybe it was ‘a few biscuits’, or ‘a few pieces of paper.’

We don’t know! But, you do know that few replaces a noun, which makes it a pronoun.

Another example is the sentence we saw before:

Prepositions go with nouns, and connect nouns to other words in the sentence. In here doesn’t go with a noun, so it can’t be a preposition.

Learn more with this Oxford Online English lesson on adverbs – to, in, at .

In here means ‘at home’, and it adds information to the verb stay. What kind of words add information to verbs?

Adverbs! So, in is an adverb.

Wait a minute, did we ever finish explaining what parts of speech are in this sentence?

You’re right! We didn’t. Let’s do it now. You need to say what parts of speech the words this evening are.

Can you do it?

Maybe you said that this is a determiner, and evening is a noun. That’s technically correct, but it’s not the best answer.

The best answer is that this evening is an adverb.

How do you explain that?

4. Compound Parts of Speech in English

Until now, you’ve seen single words, and how single words can be nouns, verbs, etc.

However, when you’re thinking about parts of speech, you can’t just think about single words. Phrases can also be nouns, verbs, adjectives, and so on.

Let’s do an example:

• Add a small spoonful of brown sugar, then turn the heat down and stir the mixture gently.

Think about the first part of this sentence: add a small spoonful of brown sugar.

What parts of speech do we have here?

Of course, you can go through it word by word. You can say, add is a verb, a is a determiner, small is an adjective and so on.

But, is that the most useful way of looking at it?

It makes more sense to see this as a verb— add —and a noun— a small spoonful of brown sugar.

The noun is made up of several parts of speech: determiners, adjectives, prepositions and nouns, but together they have one meaning. These words refer to one thing.

You can analyse a sentence in several different layers. So, you can see a small spoonful of brown sugar as six individual words, or one noun phrase.

You could also see it as three parts: a determiner— a small spoonful —a preposition— of —and a noun— brown sugar.

Confused? We understand! You want to know the answer. You want to know which way is ‘correct’.

There isn’t one ‘correct’ way to see this. There are different perspectives.

A better question is: which perspective makes more sense?

In this sentence, a small spoonful of brown sugar refers to one thing in the world. So it makes sense to think of it as one part of speech in the sentence.

What about the second part of the sentence? How would you analyse the parts of speech?

As you saw before, there isn’t one right answer, but here’s a suggestion.

The sentence contains a conjunction— then —and then two verb phrases linked with the conjunction and.

This makes sense because the sentence is telling you to do two things: turn the heat down and stir the mixture gently.

So, it makes sense to see turn the heat down as one part of speech, because it’s telling you do to one thing.

Let’s put these ideas together.

First, when you think about parts of speech, you can’t just memorise information. You have to look at each sentence individually, and think about what each word is doing.

Secondly, always think about what the sentence means in the real world. Sentences aren’t abstract things; they refer to real people, real things and real actions.

There is always more than one way to analyse the parts of speech in a sentence: choose the way that makes sense based on what the sentence is telling you about real life!

Let’s do a more challenging practice exercise so you can see these ideas in action.

5. More Challenging Practice with English Parts of Speech

Look at three sentences:

• Amazing! It’s way better than I ever thought it would be.
• She was an amazing clinician , who came up with many innovative ways to treat patients.
• I don’t believe it!

How would you analyse the parts of speech in these sentences? Think about the ideas we talked about in the last section. Does it make sense to break the sentences into individual words, or is it better to group words into phrases?

Pause the video and think about your ideas.

You can pause the video again to look at these in more detail.

Notice how the same word can be different parts of speech in different sentences. For example, amazing is an interjection in one sentence, and an adjective in another.

Notice also the different layers of analysis. For example, look at the phrase many innovative ways. You can see this as one noun phrase, or as a determiner plus a noun phrase, or as three individual parts: a determiner, an adjective and a noun.

Which is correct? They all are! Choose the perspective which makes more sense to you.

Thanks for watching!

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