20 basic rules of Grammar:
- A sentence starts with a capital letter and ends with a period/full stop, a question mark or an exclamation mark.
- The ice cream is very tasty.
- What do you do?
- My doll is very beautiful!
- The order of a basic positive sentence is Subject-Verb-Object.
- Rohan plays football.
- She is going to school.
- Every sentence must have a subject and a verb. An object is optional.
- Mary sings a song.
- The subject and verb must agree in number, that is a singular subject needs a singular verb and a plural subject needs a plural verb.
- That animal eats once a day.
- Areez and Maseera work in Dubai.
- Humans eat mostly three meals a day.
- When two singular subjects are connected by or, use a singular verb. The same is true for either/or and neither/nor.
- Areez or Maseera will go tonight.
- Either Ice cream or juice is fine for me.
- Neither Areez nor Maseera will play the game.
- Adjectives usually come before a noun
- We have a big car.
- She got a gold medal.
- (His sister is beautiful.) (except when a verb separates the adjective from the noun).
- When using two or more adjectives together, the usual order is
” opinion-adjective + fact-adjective + noun.”
- He saw a good collection of fishes.
- It was a good match.
- Treat collective nouns like committee, company, board of directors as singular OR plural.
- The committee is having a meeting now.
- The MI has changed its logo.
- The words its and it’s are two different words with different meanings.
- He is packing his bag.
- He says it’s 3 am now.
- The words your and you’re are two different words with different meanings.
- Your dress is beautiful.
- You’re looking good in this dress.
- The words there, their and they’re are three different words with different meanings.
- There was no drinking water on the table.
- I saw their new house.
- I think they’re playing games.
- The contraction he’s can mean he is OR he has. Similarly, she’s can mean she is OR she has, and it’s can mean it is OR it has, and John’s can mean John is OR John has.
- He is playing.
- She has finished.
- He is there.
- She has left.
- The contraction he’d mean he had OR he would. Similarly, they’d mean they had OR they would.
- She had played the game.
- She would drink more juice if possible.
- It had already finished.
- They would have finished if they could.
- Spell a proper noun with an initial capital letter. A proper noun is a “name” of something, for example, English, London, Maseera, John, Areez.
- Do you speak English?
- Are you going to London?
- Is Maseera your sister?
- Spell proper adjectives with an initial capital letter. Proper adjectives are made from proper nouns, for example, Germany → German, Orwell → Orwellian, Machiavelli → Machiavellian.
- London is an English town.
- Who is the American president?
- Which is your favourite rhymes?
- Use the indefinite article a/an for countable nouns in general. Use the definite article for specific countable nouns and all uncountable nouns.
- I saw flowers, they were of different colours.
- He always brings fruits for children.
- Use the indefinite article with words beginning with a consonant sound. Use the indefinite article and with words beginning with a vowel sound. see When to Say a or an dog, a game of cricket, an Indian, a university.
- an apple, an essay, a beautiful statue, an old monk,, a helicopter,
- Use many or few with countable nouns. Use much/a lot or little for uncountable nouns. see Quantifiers
- How many balls do you have?
- How much water is there in the tank?
- There are a few balloons left in the bag.
- There is little rain.
- To show possession (who is the owner of something) use an apostrophe + s for singular owners and s + apostrophe for plural owners.
- The landlord’s pet.
- The girl’s bicycle.
- In general, use the active voice (Cats eat rats) in preference to the passive voice (rats are eaten by cats).