English Grammar rules

The English language originated in England, it is a West Germanic language that slowly spread across the colonies made by the British and then into the entire world. Today we have two major types of English: U.S English and U.K English. The English language was introduced to America by British colonisation only but later they created their own English language. Now the basic difference between these two is pronunciation and sometimes spelling. Grammar rules remain almost the same for both languages. 

English is today considered a business language and also a global language with the largest demography; about  67 countries consider English as their official language. Thus it becomes quite important to learn this language. Now, to learn any language we have to understand its grammar and what are the rules associated with it. 

This article will also discuss such grammar rules of the English language:

  • Verb conjugation: It is very important to use the correct conjugation of the verb. The verb has to agree with the subject, if you use it incorrectly you may sound inaccurate. Whenever you describe something, the verb must agree with the first item you mention.
  • Whenever you are talking about the unfinished past, you have to use the present perfect tense.
  • For describing habitual actions, one must use the simple present tense.
  • A simple and basic grammar rule is that all the sentences start with a capital letter and end with a period, an exclamation mark or a question mark.
  • Every sentence must contain at least one subject and a verb, object is not necessary whereas an imperative sentence may have a verb only.
  • The number of subjects and verbs should agree. This means that singular verbs must be used with singular subjects and vice versa.
  • Attention to homophones: Homophones are words that are spelt differently but are pronounced the same way such as their/there, your/you’re or it’s/it’s. Thus they can easily lead to confusion and misunderstanding. So always pay attention to homophones.
  • Conjunction use: Conjunctions are used when you want to connect two ideas, thoughts, information or data. Now the most widely used conjunction is and but there are a large number of other conjunctions that can make your writing more effective such as whereas, unless, therefore e.t.c
  • When “or” is used to connect two singular subjects, then a singular verb is used.
  • If the verb is not separating the adjective from the noun then the adjective will come before the noun.
  • A sentence is constructed using two or three clauses linked by conjunctions and it follows the rule of Subject+ verb+object.
  • Never ever use double negatives in the same sentence such as there isn’t nothing in the room, it should be: there isn’t anything in the room.
  • Collective nouns: The use of these nouns differ in U.S English and U.K English. In British English, collective nouns ( committee, bundle e.t.c) are treated as plural nouns and thus a plural verb is used with it whereas in American English, these are treated as singular nouns and singular verbs are used for describing them.
  • A proper noun is always spelt with an initial letter in capital. Proper nouns are the name of a particular person, place or thing that are specific and not generic. 

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