Several basic elements of English

Some people find English difficult to learn, while other people claim it is easy to pick up. Both parties are right with respects to their own circumstances. In fact, English is a living language, and this means that the more you use it in your daily life activities, the easier the language will become. English is a structural language with grammar rules. For those people who learn English as a second language, it is very important to understand the basic elements in English grammar. This short chat tries to share some of the fundamental concepts in English grammar for a beginner. We can exchange ideas and expriences in learning the language in Garden of Language, and may broaden each other's views.


English sentences are the basic touchdown place for learning the language. As long as you know them well, read them more and fasten them tightly, you shall get benefits from these in all of the comprehension, the communication, the reading and the writing. The shortest sentence contains only one word, like: STOP! or COME! or QUIET!. These one-word sentences are not complete sentence because they omit the Subject and/or the Verb in their sentence. A shortest complete sentence should include at least two words: the subject and the verb. For example, "Birds fly." or "John signs." Your doubts may arise at this point and say to you, "English is much more than this simplicity." Yes, it is true that English sentences can be much more complicated. However, any complicated sentence can be built with the start of bringing the subject with the verb.

The subject of a sentence is usually the one related to the verb. Either the subject or the verb is very likely to be a single English word. Every word in English has one or more than one attributes. There are seven major attributes of a single English word: [Noun, Article, Adjective], [Verb, Modal(Auxiliary verb), Adverb], [Conjunction].

Article and Adjective stay with Noun; while Modal and Adverb help and describe Verb. Conjunction extends all words of the other six attributes, and make simple sentences longer.

Starting with a simple sentence, we can extend it to a more difficult and more complecated sentence. On the other hand, with a complex sentence at hand, we can slice it down to the main subject and the main verb for better understanding the basic meaning of the sentence. With some efforts, English will become near to us like a neighbor, instead of a stranger.