For you to speak the right ENGLISH, you need to know and understand the parts of speech. That is;
Noun, pronoun,verb, Adverb, Adjective, Preposition, Article, Interjection, and Conjunction.
A noun is a name of any person animal place or thing. from this defination, you should be able to identify a noun, that is; a person's name, names of animal, names of places, organizations and things.
Singular nouns are mostly written without "s" at the back. but plural noun has "s" at the back.
EXAMPLES Singular: car plural:cars
It can be "es" singular: Box plural:Boxes
It can be "ies" Singular: baby plural: babies
moreover some nouns are pronounced as if they are plural(with surfix "s" at the back), where as they are still singular and they dont have plural.
Examples crisis, Mathematics, statistics, measles, News, etc.
A verb is anyword that dictates the action of a sentences, a verb is also an action word or a doing word.
Singular and plural verb
unlike noun, the singular verb is the one that carries a suffix "s" or sufix "es" at the back, while the plural does not.
singular:plays plural:play singular:does plural:does singular:blesses plural:blesses singular:cooks plural:cooks
Do you understand this?
moreover we have different types of verb.
They show the real action such as dance, speak, smoke, jump, bless, etc..
Note in this example that, they are all plural verb,not singular. "speaks"is the singular for "speak".
Be gorvern by this simple fact; Verb can have past tense, past participle, even present continuous tense, that is, with "ing" at the back. But a noun does not have all these. or have you heard about"girl-girled" before of course not.
Moreover there are some noun that can act as verb, depending on the way they are used in a sentences.
Take for example
This is my school. Here, "school" is a noun.
Bur look at this; he is suppose to school at Lagos. Right here, "school" is a verb, which can have past tense(schooled), present continuous tense(schooling).
These are "has", "have" and "had".
Note that "have" is the plural pf "has" while "had" is th past tense and past participle of "have" and "has".
EXAMPLE
The boy have a pen (wrong)
The boy has a pen (right)
These are
can,could,may,might,shall,should,will,would,ought,must,dare,and need.
Note that MODEL AUXILARY VERBS do not have singular verb. There is nothing like "cans" or "musts"etc
we won't go in details about these cause that is not our focus
These are be, been, being, is, are, were, and am.
they are also known to be irregular verbs.
pronoun are used to replace noun. You may not want to mention the name of any person animal place or thing at all times. Therefore whatever you use to replace a noun is a pronoun.Examples are He, she, it, him, his, they, you, your, my, our, this, those, that, i, me, we, us, who, whom, etc.
note that pronouns can either but object or subject.
articles are words that are used to introduce a noun in sentences
example
A,An, and The
Use singular noun or pronoun for singular verb
I think you still remember from chapter one that singular verb is the one that carries "s" at the back.
Examples Tunde go to school (WRONG) Why? "Tunde" is singular- one person- so the verb to be used should be singular as well. That is; Tunde goes to school everyday (right).
Use plural noun or pronoun with plural verb
EXAMPLE They plays too much (wrong) "They" is plural while "plays" is singular. so you have to use plural of "plays" which is "play" So the correct is; They play to much. (right)
"I" As a pronoun is treated like plural is usage most of the time which is wrong
Examples I sleeps like a baby. (wrong) I sleep like a baby.(right) I has it. (wrong) I have it. (right)
When you refer to "i" as a word, either at the beginning of a sentence or at the end of the sentence and also in the moddle, it must always be a capital letter.
Use past tense to illustrate past events
I tell him last week that i have done it. (wrong) I told him last week that i have done it. (right)
Any verb that follows model auxillary verb must be present tense without "s" even when the event is past.examples of model auxillary verbs are, can, will, would, may, dare, should.
Simple calculation, he could not solve. (wrong) simple calculation he could not solve. (right)
Use "being" with primary auxillary verb such as: is, are, were or am.
use "been" with primary anomalous verb, such as "has, Have and had".ONLY.
He had being rejected. (wrong) He had been rejected. (right)
when you use the word "DICUSS" do not put "ABOUT" in front.
We will discuss about the the matter later.(wrong) we will discuss the matter later. (right)
when you use the word "comprise" do not add the word "of" in front anymore.
The team comprise of 11 boys.(wrong) The team comprise 11 boys. (right)
Nigerian' english |
Right english |
|---|---|
| I am comming... | just a moment or i will be back |
| cut hair | Have a hair cut. |
| deliver a child | give birth to a child |
| Firstborn/lastborn | Firstchild/lastchild |
| Next tomorrw | The day after tomorrw |
| long throat | Greedy |
| Hear english | understand english |
| Go-slow | Traffic jam |
| Big man | Influential man |
| He know book very well | He is very brillant |
| I know it off head | I know it off hand |
| bear palour | pub |
| we won them | we defeated them. |
| to put mouth in a matter | To discuss a matter. |
| He eats our money | he embezzled our money. |
| He is finding my trouble | He wants to peak quarrel with me. |
| Come now now | Come immediatly |
| do quick quick | hurry up |
| he is doing slow slow | he is very slow |
| we have long leg | we have nepotism |
| I drop from the taxi | I alight from the taxi |
| he is my tight friend | he is my close/best friend | i enter a car/taxi | i borad car/taxi |
| machine | motoer cycle |
| yersterday night | last night |
| pensioier | pensioner |
| Stop draging the matter | Stop arguing over the matter |
| the tap is running well | the tap is functioning well |
| Don't march me | Don't step on it |
| Hide a secret | keep a secret |
| i am a indigene of | i am a native of |
| He is learning at U.I | He is studing at U.I |
| they are calling you | he/she is calling you |