American English Class

Pronunciation and grammar fundamentals with Alyssa

Review
Parts of speech: Verb, Noun, Adjective, Adverb, Pronoun, Determiner, Preposition,
Conjunction, Interjection

Basic parts of a complete sentence: Subject, Predicate

A sentence usually has an object, and could also have an indirect object.

Adjective lists have to be in a particular order.

Breaking things down:
Subject: who? what? Always a noun

Predicate: everything else, what about the subject? Will have a verb

My dog ate my pie.

The girl went shopping at the bookstore.

Breaking it down further:
Identify the object!

Remember: the subject is who? The predicate is what’s happening? (the verb)

Object: what’s the verb happening to?

My dog ate my pie.

The girl went shopping at the bookstore.

Verb
Verbs are the action! Every sentence has at least one conjugated (changed) verb.

Example verbs: do, like, eat, play, jump

I have a rabbit. He eats and jumps and likes bananas.

Noun
Nouns are people, places, and things. They’re usually the subject or object.

Ex: dogs, cats, rabbits, teacher, student, apples, bananas

I have a rabbit. He eats and jumps and likes bananas.

Proper nouns are a person’s name or an official name. Ex: the U.S., McDonald’s

Pronouns take the place of a noun, so you don’t repeat yourself over and over.

This is my friend, Susan. She plays guitar. She brings it to the park.
Adjective
Adjectives describe nouns.

Ex: tall, short, red, blue, good

The sky is so pretty today, and the weather’s nice.

Conjunction
Conjunctions link (connect, conjoin) clauses, sentences, and words.

Ex: and, when, but

I like most fruits and vegetables, but I don’t like olives so much.

I saw a huge bird. It landed on that sign.

I saw a huge bird, and it landed on that sign.

Today: Clauses
Clause: a phrase, has a subject and a predicate

Independent clauses are complete and can be sentences by themselves.

This is an example of an independent clause.

This is an example of an independent clause.

Dependent Clauses
Dependent clauses need to be joined with another clause.

Because it’s raining today, we can’t go to the pool.

Because it’s raining today.

Punctuation
An independent and dependent clause are combined with a subordinating
conjunction: after, as, before, since, once, while, if, until.
If the dependent clause comes first, you should use a comma.

For two independent clauses, you can combine them with a coordinating
conjunction: for, and, nor, but, or, yet, so.
I’m hungry, so I’m gonna make lunch.
Common Mistakes
Comma splices are wrong, they have a comma with two independent clauses.
Correct: Comma splices are wrong. They have a comma with two independent
clauses.

Fused or run-on sentences are wrong they look like this.

Correct: Fused or run-on sentences are wrong. They look like this.

Because sentence fragments are dependent clauses treated as complete thoughts.

Correct: Because sentence fragments are dependent clauses treated as
complete thoughts, you shouldn’t use them.
Practice
I want to buy a nice watch, but I don’t have enough money.

When I tried to go to bed, I couldn’t sleep.

Since we had to go grocery shopping, we started making a list.

If you’re free this Saturday, I could use your help covering my shift.

Because they bloom early in the day, the flowers are called morning glories.

Since you promised you’d make apple pie, I’ll buy the apples.

The cat jumped over the fence, but the dog didn’t bark.
Fix these mistakes:
Because she was late.

I wanted a burger, I also wanted french fries.

There was a bird it flew overhead.

She went to school she went to the library after.