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Culture Documents
Common Nouns
Common Nouns are the names of people, animals, things and places.
Examples:
People
boy
dog
glass
beach
girls
cows
plates
farm
man
horse
chair
fields
lady
sheep
car
wharf
gentleman
goat
bicycle
park
father
bee
clothes jungle
aunt
dragonfly watch
friend
eagle
teacher
beetles
neighbors
owls
doctor
fisherman
apples
forest
town
water harbor
shoes
city
socks orchard
Proper Nouns
Proper Nouns are the special names of people, animals, things and places. They always start
with capital letters.
Examples:
People
Animals
Things
Places
Wesley
Brownie
High Park
Amy
Jumbo
Mount Kinabalu
Dickson Harbor
Chiyoko Shima
Lassie
Times Square
Vijay Reddy
Winnie
Newton Beach
Black
Beauty
Seaview Park
Lulu
Mrs. Carey
Mimi
Mdm. Elizabeth
Grant
Kitty
Whitie
National Zoo
Examples: a man, an orphan, any people, some houses, a few children, a lot of sheep, a
small / large number of ants, etc.
Uncountable Nouns
Uncountable Nouns are are nouns that cannot be counted.
Examples: water, oil, gas, powder, sugar, salt, milk, tea, coffee, wood, iron, steel, time,mone
y, ink, butter, paper, jam, etc.
Quantifiers like 'any', 'much', 'a little', 'some', 'a lot of', 'plenty of', 'a great / good deal of'
anda small / large amount of' are used with uncountable nouns.
Examples: any water, any coffee, much sand, some jam, a little time, plenty of paper, a lot
of money, a small amount of salt, etc.
Note: 'Any', 'some', 'a lot of' and 'plenty of' are used with both countable and uncountable nouns.
'Some' is used mainly in positive sentences while 'any' is used with uncountable or plural nouns
in negative sentences and questions.
Examples:
I have some books to read. (positive sentence)
There is some orange juice in the jug. (positive sentence)
Nancy does not have any money on her. (negative sentence)
I did not see any boats on the river. (negative sentence)
Have the children any toys to play with? (question)
Did the maid prepare any lemonade for us? (question)
Subject-Verb Agreement
Singular subjects go with singular verbs.
Examples of singular subjects: he, she, Alan, Sophia, friend, aunt, child, dog, cat, etc.
Examples of singular verbs: goes, drinks, plays, runs, does, knows, eats, barks, mews, etc.
Verbs
Verbs are words that express actions.
Examples: walk, run, sit, stand, eat, drink, write, read, draw, sweep, mop, wash, type, ask,a
nswer, reply, etc.
Active Voice
Look at this sentence:
Heidi fed her cat.
The sentence above is in the Active Voice. In such a sentence, the 'doer' of an action is
mentioned first.
More examples:
Tom decorated the living room.
Sally baked the cake.
I bought the fruits.
Someone stole Henry's car.
Sam painted the kennel.
My dad paid the bills.
Passive Voice
The verb in the Passive Voice is formed by combining the verb to be and a past participle.
(Examples of the verb 'to be': am, is, are, was, were, have been, has been, had been, etc.)
Verb 'to be' + Past Participle
Examples:
is + written = is written
are + made = are made
was + done = was done
were + opened = were opened
has been + read = has been read
(ii) we want to stress that the action is more important than the 'doer'. The 'doer' of the action is
excluded.
Examples:
Active : He has written the essay.
Passive : The essay has been written.
Relative Pronouns
'Who', 'whom', 'whose', 'which' and 'that' are Relative Pronouns.
In a sentence, a relative pronoun is used to refer to the noun mentioned before it. It is usually
used to add more information about the noun.
e.g. The man who won the game is my uncle.
In the above sentence, the relative pronoun 'who' is used to refer to the noun (man) before it.
After 'who', more information about the man is added, i.e., the man won the game.
A relative pronoun is also used to join two sentences together.
e.g.
The girl lost her bicycle.
She is my sister.
We can join the two sentences above together with the relative pronoun 'who'.
The girl who lost her bicycle is my sister.
'Who', 'whose' and 'whom' are used to refer to people, while 'which' and 'that' are used to refer
to animals and things.
Determiner 'those' is the plural of 'that'. It refers to persons or things further away.
Examples:
Those are cats.
Those are parcels.
Those are swallows.
Those buses are old.
Those pigeons are tame.
Those sandwiches are delicious.
Singular and Plural Nouns
A singular noun refers to one person or thing.
bus - buses
watch - watches
box - boxes
dish - dishes
match - matches
bush - bushes
mango - mangoes
buffalo - buffaloes
class - classes
glass - glasses