Welcome to Introductory English Grammar and Vocabulary with Color Key by Pronunciation Power (www.englishelearning.com), a grammar and vocabulary program for beginner English learners.  This program, which uses the unique Color Key, will help you learn and remember the English skills you need for basic communication in English. Every word has a Color Key for the part of speech that it represents.  You will be able to learn word position simply by remembering what part of speech each color represents!

 

The Color Key is easy to remember – all nouns are blue, all pronouns are green, verbs are black and so on as follows:

 

Nouns

 

Verbs

 

Pronouns

 

Articles

 

Adverbs

 

Prepositions

 

Adjectives

 

You can begin by testing yourself before starting the first lesson. Complete the Pre-test that is available on our web site (www.englishelearning.com) and keep a record of your score. When you have completed all of the Lessons and Exercises in the program you can see how much you have learned by completing the Post-test that is available on our web site.

 

Begin the easy, effective process of learning English simply by clicking on a Lesson and reviewing the Vocabulary for that lesson.  All of the words used in each of the Lesson and Exercise units are listed under “Vocabulary” in the Lesson section.  These are the words you must learn for the lesson.  There are translations available in the Vocabulary list. Click on a word in the Vocabulary list to get information on that word.  If the word is a verb you will get the conjugations of the verb listed in the order of present tense, present continuous, past and past participles for irregular verbs.  If the word is a noun you will get the plural form of that noun.

 

At the end of each Lesson test your skills in the Exercise section.  Click on “Score” to receive a score and summary when you have completed an Exercise unit. The red X indicates an incorrect answer.  The green √ indicates a correct answer.

 

To learn the pronunciation of all of the words in this program and 1000’s more, see our other products at www.englishelearning.com.

 

 

There are a few words that are used in the Lessons or Exercises that have not been translated in the program and are not in the Vocabulary list.  The words and their translations are as follows:

Ache

Actor

Ant

Bride

Centimeter

Clean (adjective)

Daisy

Drum

Essay

Explanation

Intelligent

Jungle

Necklace

Ours

Rarely

Robber

Seldom

Sidewalk

Snowman

Subject (in school)

Truth

Violin

 

There are 52 sounds in English. Our products, Pronunciation Power 1 and 2, have an animated, graphic side view of how the sound is made and a front view video of required lip movement.  Learn about these products and more at www.englishelearning.com.

 

The following topics are more advanced forms of the grammatical structures taught in this program.  These advanced structures are not taught in depth in this program, as this is an introductory grammar program.  We have included a brief description of these structures below.  To learn more about these topics, refer to an intermediate grammar program.

 

NOUNS

 

Nouns are words we use to name a person, place or thing.  They can be divided into two groups – proper nouns and common nouns.  A proper noun always has a capital letter because it is the name of a specific person (Karen), place (Canada) or thing (Christmas). Most nouns are common nouns (house, purse, shirt, school) and only have a capital if they come at the beginning of a sentence.

 

 

PLURAL NOUNS

 

One person or thing is the singular form of nouns.

Many common nouns have a plural form if there is more than one person, place or thing.  Plurals are usually formed by adding –s (cars) or –es (boxes).  Some plural nouns are formed in a different way (child = children, person = people)

To learn the plural form of the nouns used in this program refer to the noun section of the Word List.

 

COUNT AND NON-COUNT NOUNS

 

A count noun names anything you can count.  It has both a singular and plural form.  For example:  I have a (one) chair.               I have three chairs. 

                                      She has an (one) apple.               She has five apples.

           

A non-count noun is a noun you can not count.  It does not have a plural form.

For example:  I have furniture.                NOT:  I have three furnitures.

                           She has fruit.                                She has five fruits.

 

 

POSSESSIVE NOUNS

 

We use possessive nouns to show that a person, place or thing belongs to the subject or the object of a sentence.  To show possession we add an apostrophe (’) and –s to a singular noun.  There are different rules for plural nouns and irregular nouns.

 

For example:

He is Debbie’s son.

These are the student’s books.

The dog’s dish is brown.

 

 

ARTICLES

 

The”, “a”, “an” are articles.  “A” and “an” are used when referring to a thing for the first time or to indicate a thing that is not identified or specific.  “A” is used before words that begin with consonants.  “An” is used before words that begin with vowels.

 

For example:  I saw a car. (This could be any car.)

 

“The” is used to indicate that the thing being referred to is specific or identified.

 

For example: I saw the car. (This refers to a particular car.)

 

 

SUBJECT / OBJECT

 

Nouns can be used as the subject of a sentence or as the object of a verb.  The placement of the noun in the sentence will dictate what the noun is being used for. The noun will come before the verb when it is the subject of the sentence.

 

For example:  Children play.                   The kitten is cute.  

                                (N)       (V)                             (N)  (V)

 

The noun will come after the verb when it is the object of the sentence.

 

For example:  Bob wants a job.             Little children like candy.

                            (N)     (V)       (N)                             (N)      (V)     (N)

 

To learn about subject pronouns refer to Lesson 2.  To learn about object pronouns refer to Lesson 18.

 

 

VERBS

 

Verbs are words we use to show action (jump) or a condition of being (am/is/are).  Every sentence must have a verb.  Verbs change their form according to tense (jump, jumped, will jump) and person – singular or plural (I jump, she jumps, they jump).

 

 

CONJUNCTIONS

 

Conjunctions are used to connect words or clauses of a sentence together.  “And” is a common conjunction.

 

PREPOSITIONS

 

Prepositions are words we use to connect a noun or pronoun to something else in the sentence. 

For example:  The dog jumped over the fence. 

                           He is the president of the company.

                           It is hot in August. 

                           I work for you.

 

 

SYLLABLES

 

A syllable is a word or part of a word that is spoken with a single sounding of the voice. Syllables are put together to form words. We can sound out a word by dividing it into the proper syllables.

 

1 syllable:  corn

2 syllables:  apple = ap/ple

3 syllables:  potato = po/ta/to

4 syllables:  cauliflower = cau/li/flow/er

 

 

Than

 

“Than” is a conjunction we use to compare two or more things.  It means “compared to”.  The word “than” follows the comparative form of an adjective in a sentence.

 

For example:           Bob is taller than James.

                                    My daughter is happier than her friends.

                                    A doctor is richer than a waiter.

 

 

IRREGULAR VERBS

 

There are many irregular verbs.  To learn about irregular verbs refer to Lesson 12.  To learn the conjugations of these verbs refer to the Word list in this program.

 

You can learn about many more verbs and irregular verbs as well as how they are pronounced in our 8 in 1 English Dictionary.  Visit our web site at http://www.englishelearning.com/.

 

 

PHRASES USED TO SHOW PAST or FUTURE

 

Some of the common phrases we use to show the future are: tomorrow, next year, tonight, later, in a month.

 

Some of the common phrases we use to show the past are: yesterday, a long time ago, last night, last week, in 1965.

 

Some of these phrases are used in this program but are not taught in a specific lesson.