in english grammar parts of speech

Parts of Speech

What are the parts of speech, a formal definition.

Table of Contents

The Part of Speech Is Determined by the Word's Function

Are there 8 or 9 parts of speech, the nine parts of speech, (1) adjective, (3) conjunction, (4) determiner, (5) interjection, (7) preposition, (8) pronoun, why the parts of speech are important, video lesson.

• You need to dig a well . (noun)
• You look well . (adjective)
• You dance well . (adverb)
• Well , I agree. (interjection)
• My eyes will well up. (verb)
• red, happy, enormous
• Ask the boy in the red jumper.
• I live in a happy place.
• I caught a fish this morning! I mean an enormous one.
• happily, loosely, often
• They skipped happily to the counter.
• Tie the knot loosely so they can escape.
• I often walk to work.
• It is an intriguingly magic setting.
• He plays the piano extremely well.
• and, or, but
• it is a large and important city.
• Shall we run to the hills or hide in the bushes?
• I know you are lying, but I cannot prove it.
• my, those, two, many
• My dog is fine with those cats.
• There are two dogs but many cats.
• ouch, oops, eek
• Ouch , that hurt.
• Oops , it's broken.
• Eek! A mouse just ran past my foot!
• leader, town, apple
• Take me to your leader .
• I will see you in town later.
• An apple fell on his head .
• in, near, on, with
• Sarah is hiding in the box.
• I live near the train station.
• Put your hands on your head.
• She yelled with enthusiasm.
• she, we, they, that
• Joanne is smart. She is also funny.
• Our team has studied the evidence. We know the truth.
• Jack and Jill went up the hill, but they never returned.
• That is clever!
• work, be, write, exist
• Tony works down the pit now. He was unemployed.
• I will write a song for you.
• I think aliens exist .

Are you a visual learner? Do you prefer video to text? Here is a list of all our grammar videos .

Video for Each Part of Speech

The Most Important Writing Issues

The top issue related to adjectives.

The Top Issue Related to Adverbs

• Extremely annoyed, she stared menacingly at her rival.
• Infuriated, she glared at her rival.

The Top Issue Related to Conjunctions

• Burger, Fries, and a shake
• Fish, chips and peas

The Top Issue Related to Determiners

The Top Issue Related to Interjections

The top issue related to nouns, the top issue related to prepositions, the top issue related to pronouns, the top issue related to verbs.

• Crack the parts of speech to help with learning a foreign language or to take your writing to the next level.

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• Knowledge Base
• Parts of speech

The 8 Parts of Speech | Chart, Definition & Examples

A part of speech (also called a word class ) is a category that describes the role a word plays in a sentence. Understanding the different parts of speech can help you analyze how words function in a sentence and improve your writing.

The parts of speech are classified differently in different grammars, but most traditional grammars list eight parts of speech in English: nouns , pronouns , verbs , adjectives , adverbs , prepositions , conjunctions , and interjections . Some modern grammars add others, such as determiners and articles .

Many words can function as different parts of speech depending on how they are used. For example, “laugh” can be a noun (e.g., “I like your laugh”) or a verb (e.g., “don’t laugh”).

Table of contents

• Prepositions
• Conjunctions
• Interjections

Other parts of speech

Interesting language articles, frequently asked questions.

A noun is a word that refers to a person, concept, place, or thing. Nouns can act as the subject of a sentence (i.e., the person or thing performing the action) or as the object of a verb (i.e., the person or thing affected by the action).

There are numerous types of nouns, including common nouns (used to refer to nonspecific people, concepts, places, or things), proper nouns (used to refer to specific people, concepts, places, or things), and collective nouns (used to refer to a group of people or things).

Ella lives in France .

Other types of nouns include countable and uncountable nouns , concrete nouns , abstract nouns , and gerunds .

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A pronoun is a word used in place of a noun. Pronouns typically refer back to an antecedent (a previously mentioned noun) and must demonstrate correct pronoun-antecedent agreement . Like nouns, pronouns can refer to people, places, concepts, and things.

There are numerous types of pronouns, including personal pronouns (used in place of the proper name of a person), demonstrative pronouns (used to refer to specific things and indicate their relative position), and interrogative pronouns (used to introduce questions about things, people, and ownership).

That is a horrible painting!

A verb is a word that describes an action (e.g., “jump”), occurrence (e.g., “become”), or state of being (e.g., “exist”). Verbs indicate what the subject of a sentence is doing. Every complete sentence must contain at least one verb.

Verbs can change form depending on subject (e.g., first person singular), tense (e.g., simple past), mood (e.g., interrogative), and voice (e.g., passive voice ).

Regular verbs are verbs whose simple past and past participle are formed by adding“-ed” to the end of the word (or “-d” if the word already ends in “e”). Irregular verbs are verbs whose simple past and past participles are formed in some other way.

“I’ve already checked twice.”

“I heard that you used to sing .”

Other types of verbs include auxiliary verbs , linking verbs , modal verbs , and phrasal verbs .

An adjective is a word that describes a noun or pronoun. Adjectives can be attributive , appearing before a noun (e.g., “a red hat”), or predicative , appearing after a noun with the use of a linking verb like “to be” (e.g., “the hat is red ”).

Adjectives can also have a comparative function. Comparative adjectives compare two or more things. Superlative adjectives describe something as having the most or least of a specific characteristic.

Other types of adjectives include coordinate adjectives , participial adjectives , and denominal adjectives .

An adverb is a word that can modify a verb, adjective, adverb, or sentence. Adverbs are often formed by adding “-ly” to the end of an adjective (e.g., “slow” becomes “slowly”), although not all adverbs have this ending, and not all words with this ending are adverbs.

There are numerous types of adverbs, including adverbs of manner (used to describe how something occurs), adverbs of degree (used to indicate extent or degree), and adverbs of place (used to describe the location of an action or event).

Talia writes quite quickly.

Other types of adverbs include adverbs of frequency , adverbs of purpose , focusing adverbs , and adverbial phrases .

A preposition is a word (e.g., “at”) or phrase (e.g., “on top of”) used to show the relationship between the different parts of a sentence. Prepositions can be used to indicate aspects such as time , place , and direction .

I left the cup on the kitchen counter.

A conjunction is a word used to connect different parts of a sentence (e.g., words, phrases, or clauses).

The main types of conjunctions are coordinating conjunctions (used to connect items that are grammatically equal), subordinating conjunctions (used to introduce a dependent clause), and correlative conjunctions (used in pairs to join grammatically equal parts of a sentence).

You can choose what movie we watch because I chose the last time.

An interjection is a word or phrase used to express a feeling, give a command, or greet someone. Interjections are a grammatically independent part of speech, so they can often be excluded from a sentence without affecting the meaning.

Types of interjections include volitive interjections (used to make a demand or request), emotive interjections (used to express a feeling or reaction), cognitive interjections (used to indicate thoughts), and greetings and parting words (used at the beginning and end of a conversation).

Ouch ! I hurt my arm.

I’m, um , not sure.

The traditional classification of English words into eight parts of speech is by no means the only one or the objective truth. Grammarians have often divided them into more or fewer classes. Other commonly mentioned parts of speech include determiners and articles.

• Determiners

A determiner is a word that describes a noun by indicating quantity, possession, or relative position.

Common types of determiners include demonstrative determiners (used to indicate the relative position of a noun), possessive determiners (used to describe ownership), and quantifiers (used to indicate the quantity of a noun).

My brother is selling his old car.

Other types of determiners include distributive determiners , determiners of difference , and numbers .

An article is a word that modifies a noun by indicating whether it is specific or general.

• The definite article the is used to refer to a specific version of a noun. The can be used with all countable and uncountable nouns (e.g., “the door,” “the energy,” “the mountains”).
• The indefinite articles a and an refer to general or unspecific nouns. The indefinite articles can only be used with singular countable nouns (e.g., “a poster,” “an engine”).

There’s a concert this weekend.

If you want to know more about nouns , pronouns , verbs , and other parts of speech, make sure to check out some of our language articles with explanations and examples.

Nouns & pronouns

• Common nouns
• Proper nouns
• Collective nouns
• Personal pronouns
• Uncountable and countable nouns
• Verb tenses
• Phrasal verbs
• Types of verbs
• Active vs passive voice
• Subject-verb agreement

A is an indefinite article (along with an ). While articles can be classed as their own part of speech, they’re also considered a type of determiner .

The indefinite articles are used to introduce nonspecific countable nouns (e.g., “a dog,” “an island”).

In is primarily classed as a preposition, but it can be classed as various other parts of speech, depending on how it is used:

• Preposition (e.g., “ in the field”)
• Noun (e.g., “I have an in with that company”)
• Adjective (e.g., “Tim is part of the in crowd”)
• Adverb (e.g., “Will you be in this evening?”)

As a part of speech, and is classed as a conjunction . Specifically, it’s a coordinating conjunction .

And can be used to connect grammatically equal parts of a sentence, such as two nouns (e.g., “a cup and plate”), or two adjectives (e.g., “strong and smart”). And can also be used to connect phrases and clauses.

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What are the parts of speech?

Today's the day for you to learn about this important grammatical concept! But first...let's see what the parts of speech have to do with your clothes.

Imagine that it's laundry day, and you've just finished washing and drying your clothes. You dump the contents of the laundry basket onto your bed, and you begin to organize everything. You fold matching socks together, you create a pile of perfectly folded shirts that you would be proud to show Marie Kondo, and you do the same thing with your pants, jackets, and everything else.

In the same way that we organize our clothes into groups based on each item's function and features, we organize our words into categories based on each word's function and features. We call these categories of words the parts of speech .

Some people categorize words into eight parts of speech, and some people categorize them into nine parts of speech. Neither one is wrong; they're just two ways of looking at things. We'll go over these categories below. Here at English Grammar Revolution, we categorize words into eight groups, but I'll tell you about the ninth one as well.

There's one important thing for you to know before we look at these categories: most words can function as more than one part of speech . They will only do one job at a time, but they can do different things in different sentences. Look at the word love in the following sentences.

My  love  of grammar inspired me to make this website.

Here, love is functioning as a noun. It's the subject of the sentence. 

I  love  you.

Now, love is acting as a  verb ! It's telling us an action.

The only way we can know how to categorize a word is to look at how it's acting within a sentence.

Okay, let's check out the parts of speech!

The 8 Parts of Speech

Nouns  name people, places, things, or ideas. They're important parts of our sentences because they perform  important jobs  (subjects, direct objects, predicate nouns, etc.).

A peacock walked through our yard .

The dog howled during the night , and it woke up our whole family .

Sometimes people get bogged down with this part of speech because there are also many subcategories of nouns. This is similar to the way that we have subcategories for our clothes. You may have a whole drawer full of pants, but you may also have different types of pants that you use for different purposes (workout pants, lounge pants, work pants, etc.). This is similar to the way that we can further categorize nouns into smaller groups. 

Here are a few of the subcategories of nouns:  proper nouns, common nouns ,  collective nouns ,  possessive nouns , and compound nouns.

Tip : Other parts of speech also have subcategories. If you're studying this information for the first time, ignore the subcategories and focus on learning about each broader category.

2. Pronouns

Pronouns  take the place of nouns. When most people hear the word pronoun , they think of words like I, we, me, he,   she, and they . These are indeed all pronouns, but they're a part of a subcategory called personal pronouns. Know that there are other kinds of pronouns out there as well. Here are some examples: myself, his, someone , and who .

Here are a few of the subcategories of pronouns:  reflexive pronouns ,  indefinite pronouns ,  possessive pronouns , and  relative pronouns . 

When we walked across the bridge,  we saw someone who  knows you .

I will fix the dishwasher  myself .

Verbs  show actions or states of being. They are integral elements of  sentences .   

The shuttle will fly into space.

The loving mother comforted  and soothed the baby.

In the Montessori tradition of education, they use a large red circle or ball to symbolize a verb, and they often teach children to think of verbs as a sun providing the energy of a sentence. Isn't that a lovely way to think of verbs?

I know that you're getting tired of hearing about subcategories, but linking verbs, action verbs, and helping verbs are described on the  verb page here . 

Modal verbs  are described on that link, and you can learn even more about  action verbs  and  linking verbs  from those links.

4. Adjectives

Adjectives  describe, or  modify , nouns and pronouns. I like to think of them as adding color to language. It would be hard to describe a beautiful sunset or the way a touching story makes us feel without using adjectives.

The wise, handsome owl had orange eyes.

The caring father rocked the baby.

One helpful strategy for learning about and identifying adjectives is to learn how they are diagrammed . Sentence diagrams are pictures of sentences that help us see how all of the words are grammatically related. Since adjectives modify nouns and pronouns, we diagram them on slanted lines under the nouns/pronouns that they are modifying. 

My green and white book fell.

Book is a noun. It's the subject of this sentence. My, green , and white are all adjectives describing book , so we diagram them on slanted lines underneath book . Isn't that a great way to SEE what adjectives do?

Nine Parts of Speech

When people categorize words into eight parts of speech, they say that articles/determiners ( a, an,   the, this, that, etc. ) are subcategories of adjectives.  

When people categorize words into nine parts of speech, they say that articles/determiners make up their own category and are not a part of the adjective category. 

Adverbs  modify (describe) verbs, adjectives, and other adverbs. Adverbs are similar to adjectives in that they both modify things. 

The extremely cute koala hugged its mom very tightly .

The dog howled loudly .

Sentence diagrams also make it really easy to see what adverbs do. Take a look at this diagram. What do you notice about the way the adverbs are diagrammed? 

James ran very quickly.

Did you notice that the adverbs are diagrammed on slanted lines under the words that they are modifying?

Ran is a verb. Quickly is an adverb telling us more about the verb ran . Very is an adverb telling us more about the adverb quickly .

Doesn't the diagram make it easier to SEE what adverbs do?

6. Prepositions

Prepositions  are probably the most difficult part of speech to explain, but people generally have an easier time understanding them when they look at lots of examples. So...let's start with some examples of commonly used prepositions! 

in, for, of, off, if, until

The frog sat in the flower.

The baby cried for a long time.

I'm so convinced that memorizing some of the prepositions will be helpful to you that  I'll teach you a preposition song . 

Okay, now that we've looked at some examples, let's look at the definition of a preposition. 

Prepositions show the relationship between a noun or a pronoun and some other word in the rest of the sentence. 

Sentence diagrams will come to the rescue again to help us visualize what prepositions do. Think of prepositions as "noun hooks" or "noun bridges." In the diagram below, notice how the preposition down links the noun tree to the rest of the sentence.  

The cat ran down the tree.

Since prepositions always function as "noun hooks," they'll always be accompanied by a noun. The preposition plus its noun is called a prepositional phrase .

If you find a word from the preposition list that's not a part of a prepositional phrase, it's not functioning as a preposition. (You remember that words can function as different parts of speech , right?)

7. Conjunctions

Conjunctions  join things together. They can join words or groups of words (phrases and clauses).

The hummingbird sat   and   waited .

The conjunction and is joining the words sat and waited .

Do you live  near the park or near the hospital ?

The conjunction or is joining the phrases near the park and near the hospital.  

The two conjunctions we just looked at ( and and or ) belong to a subcategory called coordinating conjunctions, but there are other subcategories of conjunctions as well. The other one that we use most often is  subordinating conjunctions . Subordinating conjunctions are a little trickier to learn because they involve a more complicated concept ( dependent adverb clauses ).

For now, just know that all conjunctions, no matter what type they are, connect things together. In fact, let's LOOK at how they do this by looking at a sentence diagram.

Here is a sentence diagram  showing how the coordinating conjunction  and  connects two clauses. 

She cooked, and he cleaned. 

8. Interjections

Interjections show excitement or emotion. 

Wow ! That jump was amazing!

Phew , the baby finally fell asleep.

They are different from the other parts of speech in that they're not grammatically related to the rest of the sentence, and the way that we diagram them reflects that. Look at how we diagram interjections :

Yes ! We won the lottery!

The interjection yes sit sits there on its own line floating above the rest of the sentence. This helps show that it's not grammatically related to the other words in the sentence. 

It's time to review what we covered on this page.

• We can categorize the words that we use into groups based on their functions and features. We call these groups the parts of speech.
• Many words can function as multiple parts of speech. You need to look at each word in the context of a sentence in order to say what part of speech it is. 
• The eight parts of speech are nouns, pronouns, adjectives, verbs, adverbs, conjunctions, prepositions, and interjections. 
• You just learned about all of the parts of speech. Give yourself a high five! 

If you'd like to teach or learn grammar the easy way—with sentence diagrams—check out our  Get Smart Grammar Program .

It starts from the very beginning and teaches you grammar and sentence diagramming in easy, bite-size lessons. 

Hello! I'm Elizabeth O'Brien, and my goal is to get you jazzed about grammar. 

This is original content from  https://www.english-grammar-revolution.com/parts-of-speech.html

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Elizabeth O'Brien is the creator of Grammar Revolution.

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The 9 Parts of Speech: Definitions and Examples

• Ph.D., Rhetoric and English, University of Georgia
• M.A., Modern English and American Literature, University of Leicester
• B.A., English, State University of New York

A part of speech is a term used in traditional grammar for one of the nine main categories into which words are classified according to their functions in sentences, such as nouns or verbs. Also known as word classes, these are the building blocks of grammar.

Every sentence you write or speak in English includes words that fall into some of the nine parts of speech. These include nouns, pronouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, prepositions, conjunctions, articles/determiners, and interjections. (Some sources include only eight parts of speech and leave interjections in their own category.)

Parts of Speech

• Word types can be divided into nine parts of speech:
• prepositions
• conjunctions
• articles/determiners
• interjections
• Some words can be considered more than one part of speech, depending on context and usage.
• Interjections can form complete sentences on their own.

Learning the names of the parts of speech probably won't make you witty, healthy, wealthy, or wise. In fact, learning just the names of the parts of speech won't even make you a better writer. However, you will gain a basic understanding of sentence structure  and the  English language by familiarizing yourself with these labels.

Open and Closed Word Classes

The parts of speech are commonly divided into  open classes  (nouns, verbs, adjectives, and adverbs) and  closed classes  (pronouns, prepositions, conjunctions, articles/determiners, and interjections). Open classes can be altered and added to as language develops, and closed classes are pretty much set in stone. For example, new nouns are created every day, but conjunctions never change.

In contemporary linguistics , parts of speech are generally referred to as word classes or syntactic categories. The main difference is that word classes are classified according to more strict linguistic criteria. Within word classes, there is the lexical, or open class, and the function, or closed class.

The 9 Parts of Speech

Read about each part of speech below, and practice identifying each.

Nouns are a person, place, thing, or idea. They can take on a myriad of roles in a sentence, from the subject of it all to the object of an action. They are capitalized when they're the official name of something or someone, and they're called proper nouns in these cases. Examples: pirate, Caribbean, ship, freedom, Captain Jack Sparrow.

Pronouns stand in for nouns in a sentence . They are more generic versions of nouns that refer only to people. Examples:​  I, you, he, she, it, ours, them, who, which, anybody, ourselves.

Verbs are action words that tell what happens in a sentence. They can also show a sentence subject's state of being ( is , was ). Verbs change form based on tense (present, past) and count distinction (singular or plural). Examples:  sing, dance, believes, seemed, finish, eat, drink, be, became.

Adjectives describe nouns and pronouns. They specify which one, how much, what kind, and more. Adjectives allow readers and listeners to use their senses to imagine something more clearly. Examples:  hot, lazy, funny, unique, bright, beautiful, poor, smooth.

Adverbs describe verbs, adjectives, and even other adverbs. They specify when, where, how, and why something happened and to what extent or how often. Many adjectives can be turned into adjectives by adding the suffix - ly . Examples:  softly, quickly, lazily, often, only, hopefully, sometimes.

Preposition

Prepositions  show spatial, temporal, and role relations between a noun or pronoun and the other words in a sentence. They come at the start of a prepositional phrase , which contains a preposition and its object. Examples:  up, over, against, by, for, into, close to, out of, apart from.

Conjunction

Conjunctions join words, phrases, and clauses in a sentence. There are coordinating, subordinating, and correlative conjunctions. Examples:  and, but, or, so, yet.

Articles and Determiners

Articles and determiners function like adjectives by modifying nouns, but they are different than adjectives in that they are necessary for a sentence to have proper syntax. Articles and determiners specify and identify nouns, and there are indefinite and definite articles. Examples of articles:  a, an, the ; examples of determiners:  these, that, those, enough, much, few, which, what.

Some traditional grammars have treated articles  as a distinct part of speech. Modern grammars, however, more often include articles in the category of determiners , which identify or quantify a noun. Even though they modify nouns like adjectives, articles are different in that they are essential to the proper syntax of a sentence, just as determiners are necessary to convey the meaning of a sentence, while adjectives are optional.

Interjection

Interjections are expressions that can stand on their own or be contained within sentences. These words and phrases often carry strong emotions and convey reactions. Examples:  ah, whoops, ouch, yabba dabba do!

How to Determine the Part of Speech

Only interjections ( Hooray! ) have a habit of standing alone; every other part of speech must be contained within a sentence and some are even required in sentences (nouns and verbs). Other parts of speech come in many varieties and may appear just about anywhere in a sentence.

To know for sure what part of speech a word falls into, look not only at the word itself but also at its meaning, position, and use in a sentence.

For example, in the first sentence below,  work  functions as a noun; in the second sentence, a verb; and in the third sentence, an adjective:

• Bosco showed up for  work  two hours late.
• The noun  work  is the thing Bosco shows up for.
• He will have to  work  until midnight.
• The verb  work  is the action he must perform.
• His  work  permit expires next month.
• The  attributive noun  (or converted adjective) work  modifies the noun  permit .

Learning the names and uses of the basic parts of speech is just one way to understand how sentences are constructed.

Dissecting Basic Sentences

To form a basic complete sentence, you only need two elements: a noun (or pronoun standing in for a noun) and a verb. The noun acts as a subject, and the verb, by telling what action the subject is taking, acts as the predicate. 

In the short sentence above,  birds  is the noun and  fly  is the verb. The sentence makes sense and gets the point across.

You can have a sentence with just one word without breaking any sentence formation rules. The short sentence below is complete because it's a verb command with an understood "you" noun.

Here, the pronoun, standing in for a noun, is implied and acts as the subject. The sentence is really saying, "(You) go!"

Constructing More Complex Sentences

Use more parts of speech to add additional information about what's happening in a sentence to make it more complex. Take the first sentence from above, for example, and incorporate more information about how and why birds fly.

• Birds fly when migrating before winter.

Birds and fly remain the noun and the verb, but now there is more description. 

When  is an adverb that modifies the verb fly.  The word before  is a little tricky because it can be either a conjunction, preposition, or adverb depending on the context. In this case, it's a preposition because it's followed by a noun. This preposition begins an adverbial phrase of time ( before winter ) that answers the question of when the birds migrate . Before is not a conjunction because it does not connect two clauses.

• What Is a Phrase? Definition and Examples in Grammar
• Closed Class Words
• Reduced Relative Clauses
• Word Class in English Grammar
• Open Class Words in English Grammar
• Telegraphic Speech
• Parts of Speech Printable Worksheets
• How to Diagram a Sentence
• Content or Lexical Word in English
• Adverbio o Adjetivo
• Sentence Parts and Sentence Structures
• What are 'Wh- Words' in Grammar?
• How Does Concord Apply to English Grammar?
• Understanding Anthimeria in Language
• Meaning and Examples of Inflectional Morphemes
• Passed vs. Past: How to Choose the Right Word

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Understanding the Parts of Speech in English

Yes, the parts of speech in English are extensive and complex. But we’ve made it easy for you to start learning them by gathering the most basic and essential information in this easy-to-follow and comprehensive guide.

Parts of Speech: Quick Summary

Parts of speech assign words to different categories. There are eight different types in English. Keep in mind that a word can belong to more than one part of speech.

Learn About:

• Parts of Speech
• Prepositions
• Conjunctions
• Interjections

Using the Parts of Speech Correctly In Your Writing

Knowing the parts of speech is vital when learning a new language.

When it comes to learning a new language, there are several components you should understand to truly get a grasp of the language and speak it fluently.

It’s not enough to become an expert in just one area. For instance, you can learn and memorize all the intricate grammar rules, but if you don’t practice speaking or writing colloquially, you will find it challenging to use that language in real time.

Conversely, if you don’t spend time trying to learn the rules and technicalities of a language, you’ll also find yourself struggling to use it correctly.

Think of it this way: Language is a tasty, colorful, and nutritious salad. If you fill your bowl with nothing but lettuce, your fluency will be bland, boring, and tasteless. But if you spend time cultivating other ingredients for your salad—like style, word choice, and vocabulary— then it will become a wholesome meal you can share with others.

In this blog post, we’re going to cover one of the many ingredients you’ll need to build a nourishing salad of the English language—the parts of speech.

Let’s get choppin’!

What Are the Parts of Speech in English?

The parts of speech refer to categories to which a word belongs. In English, there are eight of them : verbs , nouns, pronouns, adjectives, adverbs, prepositions, conjunctions, and interjections.

Many English words fall into more than one part of speech category. Take the word light as an example. It can function as a verb, noun, or adjective.

Verb: Can you please light the candles?

Noun: The room was filled with a dim, warm light .

Adjective: She wore a light jacket in the cool weather.

The parts of speech in English are extensive. There’s a lot to cover in each category—much more than we can in this blog post. The information below is simply a brief overview of the basics of the parts of speech. Nevertheless, the concise explanations and accompanying example sentences will help you gain an understanding of how to use them correctly.

What Are Verbs?

Verbs are the most essential parts of speech because they move the meaning of sentences along.

A verb can show actions of the body and mind ( jump and think ), occurrences ( happen or occur ), and states of being ( be and exist ). Put differently, verbs breathe life into sentences by describing actions or indicating existence. These parts of speech can also change form to express time , person , number , voice , and mood .

There are several verb categories. A few of them are:

• Regular and irregular verbs
• Transitive and intransitive verbs
• Auxiliary verbs

A few examples of verbs include sing (an irregular action verb), have (which can be a main verb or auxiliary verb), be , which is a state of being verb, and would (another auxiliary verb).

My little sister loves to sing .

I have a dog and her name is Sweet Pea.

I will be there at 5 P.M.

I would like to travel the world someday.

Again, these are just the very basics of English verbs. There’s a lot more that you should learn to be well-versed in this part of speech, but the information above is a good place to start.

What Are Nouns?

Nouns refer to people ( John and child ), places ( store and Italy ), things ( firetruck and pen ), and ideas or concepts ( love and balance ). There are also many categories within nouns. For example, proper nouns name a specific person, place, thing, or idea. These types of nouns are always capitalized.

Olivia is turning five in a few days.

My dream is to visit Tokyo .

The Supreme Court is the highest court in the United States.

Some argue that Buddhism is a way of life, not a religion.

On the other hand, common nouns are not specific to any particular entity and are used to refer to any member of a general category.

My teacher is the smartest, most caring person I know!

I love roaming around a city I’ve never been to before.

This is my favorite book , which was recommended to me by my father.

There’s nothing more important to me than love .

Nouns can be either singular or plural. Singular nouns refer to a single entity, while plural nouns refer to multiple entities.

Can you move that chair out of the way, please? (Singular)

Can you move those chairs out of the way, please? (Plural)

While many plural nouns are formed by adding an “–s” or “–es,” others have irregular plural forms, meaning they don’t follow the typical pattern.

There was one woman waiting in line.

There were several women waiting in line.

Nouns can also be countable or uncountable . Those that are countable refer to nouns that can be counted as individual units. For example, there can be one book, two books, three books, or more. Uncountable nouns cannot be counted as individual units. Take the word water as an example. You could say I drank some water, but it would be incorrect to say I drank waters. Instead, you would say something like I drank several bottles of water.

What Are Pronouns?

A pronoun is a word that can take the place of other nouns or noun phrases. Pronouns serve the purpose of referring to nouns without having to repeat the word each time. A word (or group of words) that a pronoun refers to is called the antecedent .

Jessica went to the store, and she bought some blueberries.

In the sentence above, Jessica is the antecedent, and she is the referring pronoun. Here’s the same sentence without the proper use of a pronoun:

Jessica went to the store, and Jessica bought some blueberries.

Do you see how the use of a pronoun improves the sentence by avoiding repetitiveness?

Like all the other parts of speech we have covered, pronouns also have various categories.

Personal pronouns replace specific people or things: I, me, you, he, she, him, her, it, we, us, they, them.

When I saw them at the airport, I waved my hands up in the air so they could see me .

Possessive pronouns indicate ownership : mine, ours, yours, his, hers, theirs, whose.

I think that phone is hers .

Reflexive pronouns refer to the subject of a sentence or clause. They are used when the subject and the object of a sentence refer to the same person or thing: myself, yourself, himself, herself, itself, ourselves, yourselves, themselves.

The iguanas sunned themselves on the roof of my car.

Intensive pronouns have the same form as reflexive pronouns and are used to emphasize or intensify the subject of a sentence.

I will take care of this situation myself .

Indefinite pronouns do not refer to specific individuals or objects but rather to a general or unspecified person, thing, or group. Some examples include someone, everybody, anything, nobody, each, something, and all.

Everybody enjoyed the party. Someone even said it was the best party they had ever attended.

Demonstrative pronouns are used to identify or point to specific pronouns: this, that, these, those.

Can you pick up those pens off the floor?

Interrogative pronouns are used to ask questions and seek information: who, whom, whose, which, what.

Who can help move these heavy boxes?

Relative pronouns connect a clause or a phrase to a noun or pronoun: who, whom, whose, which, that, what, whoever, whichever, whatever.

Christina, who is the hiring manager, is the person whom you should get in touch with.

Reciprocal pronouns are used to refer to individual parts of a plural antecedent. They indicate a mutual or reciprocal relationship between two or more people or things: each other or one another.

The cousins always giggle and share secrets with one another .  

What Are Adjectives?

Adjectives modify nouns or pronouns, usually by describing, identifying, or quantifying them. They play a vital role in adding detail, precision, and imagery to English, allowing us to depict and differentiate the qualities of people, objects, places, and ideas.

The blue house sticks out compared to the other neutral-colored ones. (Describes)

That house is pretty, but I don’t like the color. (Identifies)

There were several houses I liked, but the blue one was unique. (Quantifies)

We should note that identifying or quantifying adjectives are also referred to as determiners. Additionally, articles ( a, an, the ) and numerals ( four or third ) are also used to quantify and identify adjectives.

Descriptive adjectives have other forms (known as comparative and superlative adjectives ) that allow for comparisons. For example, the comparative of the word small is smaller, while the superlative is smallest.

Proper adjectives (which are derived from proper nouns) describe specific nouns. They usually retain the same spelling or are slightly modified, but they’re always capitalized. For example, the proper noun France can be turned into the proper adjective French.

What Are Adverbs?

Adverbs are words that modify or describe verbs, adjectives, other adverbs, or entire clauses. Although many adverbs end in “–ly,” not all of them do. Also, some words that end in “–ly” are adjectives, not adverbs ( lovely ).

She dances beautifully .

In the sentence above, beautifully modifies the verb dances.

We visited an extremely tall building.

Here, the adverb extremely modifies the adjective tall.

He had to run very quickly to not miss the train.

The adverb very modifies the adverb quickly.

Interestingly , the experiment yielded unexpected results that left us baffled.

In this example, the word interestingly modifies the independent clause that comprises the rest of the sentence (which is why they’re called sentence adverbs ).

Like adjectives, adverbs can also have other forms when making comparisons. For example:

strongly, more strongly, most strongly, less strongly, least strongly

What Are Prepositions?

Prepositions provide context and establish relationships between nouns, pronouns, and other words in a sentence. They indicate time, location, direction, manner, and other vital information. Prepositions can fall into several subcategories. For instance, on can indicate physical location, but it can also be used to express time.

Place the bouquet of roses on the table.

We will meet on Monday.

There are many prepositions. A few examples include: about, above, across, after, before, behind, beneath, beside, during, except, for, from, in, inside, into, like, near, of, off, onto, past, regarding, since, through, toward, under, until, with, without.

Prepositions can contain more than one word, like according to and with regard to.

What Are Conjunctions?

Conjunctions are words that join words, phrases, or clauses together within a sentence and provide information about the relationship between those words. There are different types of conjunctions.

Coordinating conjunctions connect words, phrases, or clauses of equal importance: and, but, for, not, or, so, yet.

I like to sing, and she likes to dance.

Correlative conjunctions come in pairs and join balanced elements of a sentence: both…and, just as…so, not only…but also, either…or, neither…nor, whether…or.

You can either come with us and have fun, or stay at home and be bored.

Subordinating conjunctions connect dependent clauses to independent clauses. A few examples include: after, although, even though, since, unless, until, when , and while.

They had a great time on their stroll, even though it started raining and they got soaked.

Conjunctive adverbs are adverbs that function as conjunctions, connecting independent clauses or sentences. Examples of conjunctive adverbs are also, anyway, besides, however, meanwhile, nevertheless, otherwise, similarly, and therefore .

I really wanted to go to the party. However , I was feeling sick and decided to stay in.

I really wanted to go to the party; however , I was feeling sick and decided to stay in.

What Are Interjections?

Interjections are words that express strong emotions, sudden reactions, or exclamations. This part of speech is usually a standalone word or phrase, but even when it is  part of a sentence, it does not relate grammatically to the rest of .

There are several interjections. Examples include: ahh, alas, bravo, eww, hello, please, thanks, and oops.

Ahh ! I couldn’t believe what was happening.

When it comes to improving your writing skills, understanding the parts of speech is as important as adding other ingredients besides lettuce to a salad.

The information provided above is indeed extensive, but it’s critical to learn if you want to write effectively and confidently. LanguageTool—a multilingual writing assistant—makes comprehending the parts of speech easy by detecting errors as you write.

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Parts of Speech

What is a Part of Speech?

We can categorize English words into 9 basic types called "parts of speech" or "word classes". It's quite important to recognize parts of speech. This helps you to analyze sentences and understand them. It also helps you to construct good sentences.

Parts of Speech Table

Parts of speech examples.

• Parts of Speech Quiz

This is a summary of the 9 parts of speech*. You can find more detail if you click on each part of speech.

• lexical Verbs ( work, like, run )
• auxiliary Verbs ( be, have, must )
• Determiners may be treated as adjectives, instead of being a separate part of speech.

Here are some examples of sentences made with different English parts of speech:

Here is a sentence that contains every part of speech:

Words with More Than One Job

Many words in English can have more than one job, or be more than one part of speech. For example, "work" can be a verb and a noun; "but" can be a conjunction and a preposition; "well" can be an adjective, an adverb and an interjection. In addition, many nouns can act as adjectives.

To analyze the part of speech, ask yourself: "What job is this word doing in this sentence?"

In the table below you can see a few examples. Of course, there are more, even for some of the words in the table. In fact, if you look in a good dictionary you will see that the word " but " has six jobs to do:

• verb, noun, adverb, pronoun, preposition and conjunction!

People often ask

FAQ: frequently asked parts of speech questions

Parts of Speech: A Guide to Learning English Grammar

By: Author English Study Online

Posted on Last updated: December 27, 2023

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In this page, we will break down each part of speech and provide examples to help you understand their usage. We will also discuss how to identify the different parts of speech in a sentence and provide tips on how to use them correctly. Whether you are a beginner or an advanced English learner, this article will provide valuable insights into the parts of speech and improve your language skills. Let’s get started!

Table of Contents

Overview of Parts of Speech

In this section, we will provide a brief overview of the eight parts of speech in English. Understanding the parts of speech is essential for anyone learning the English language, as it enables them to construct meaningful sentences and communicate effectively.

The eight parts of speech are:

Prepositions

Conjunctions, interjections.

Each part of speech has a specific function in a sentence. For example, nouns are used to name people, places, things, or ideas, while verbs are used to describe an action or state of being. Adjectives are used to describe nouns, while adverbs are used to describe verbs, adjectives, or other adverbs.

Pronouns are used to replace nouns in a sentence, while prepositions are used to indicate the relationship between a noun or pronoun and other words in a sentence. Conjunctions are used to connect words, phrases, or clauses, while interjections are used to express emotions or feelings.

Nouns are words that represent people, places, things, or ideas. They are one of the most important parts of speech in English and are used in nearly every sentence. In this section, we will explore the different types of nouns and their functions.

Common Nouns

Common nouns are general names for people, places, or things. They are not capitalized unless they appear at the beginning of a sentence.

• Examples of common nouns include “book,” “city,” and “teacher.”

Proper Nouns

Proper nouns are specific names for people, places, or things. They are always capitalized.

• Examples of proper nouns include “Harry Potter,” “New York City,” and “Ms. Johnson.”

Abstract Nouns

Abstract nouns are names for ideas, concepts, or emotions. They are intangible and cannot be seen, heard, or touched.

• Examples of abstract nouns include “love,” “happiness,” and “freedom.”

Collective Nouns

Collective nouns are names for groups of people or things. They can be singular or plural, depending on the context.

• Examples of collective nouns include “team,” “family,” and “herd.”

In this section, we will discuss the different types of pronouns used in English grammar. Pronouns are words that replace nouns in a sentence. They help to avoid repetition and make sentences more concise.

Personal Pronouns

Personal pronouns refer to specific people or things. They can be used as the subject or object of a sentence. Here are the personal pronouns in English:

Demonstrative Pronouns

Demonstrative pronouns are used to point to specific people or things. They can be used to indicate distance or location. Here are the demonstrative pronouns in English:

Interrogative Pronouns

Interrogative pronouns are used to ask questions. They are typically used at the beginning of a sentence. Here are the interrogative pronouns in English:

Indefinite Pronouns

Indefinite pronouns refer to non-specific people or things. They can be used as the subject or object of a sentence. Here are the indefinite pronouns in English:

Verbs are one of the most important parts of speech in English. They are used to describe an action, state, or occurrence. In this section, we will cover the three types of verbs: action verbs, linking verbs, and helping verbs.

Action Verbs

Action verbs are used to describe an action that is being performed by the subject of the sentence. They can be used in the present, past, or future tense. Here are a few examples of action verbs:

Linking Verbs

Linking verbs are used to connect the subject of the sentence to a noun, pronoun, or adjective that describes it. They do not show action. Here are a few examples of linking verbs:

Helping Verbs

Helping verbs are used in conjunction with the main verb to express tense, voice, or mood. They do not have a meaning on their own. Here are a few examples of helping verbs:

In conclusion, verbs are an essential part of English grammar. Understanding the different types of verbs and how they are used in a sentence can help you communicate more effectively in both written and spoken English.

In this section, we will discuss adjectives, which are an important part of speech in English. Adjectives are words that describe or modify nouns or pronouns. They provide more information about the noun or pronoun, such as its size, shape, color, or quality.

Descriptive Adjectives

Descriptive adjectives are the most common type of adjectives. They describe the physical or observable characteristics of a noun or pronoun. For example, in the sentence “The red car is fast,” “red” is a descriptive adjective that describes the color of the car, and “fast” is another descriptive adjective that describes its speed.

Here are some examples of descriptive adjectives:

Quantitative Adjectives

Quantitative adjectives are used to describe the quantity or amount of a noun or pronoun. They answer the question “how much” or “how many.” For example, in the sentence “I have two apples,” “two” is a quantitative adjective that describes the number of apples.

Here are some examples of quantitative adjectives:

Demonstrative Adjectives

Demonstrative adjectives are used to point out or indicate a specific noun or pronoun. They answer the question “which one” or “whose.” For example, in the sentence “This book is mine,” “this” is a demonstrative adjective that indicates the specific book that belongs to the speaker.

Here are some examples of demonstrative adjectives:

In conclusion, adjectives are an important part of speech in English. They provide more information about nouns and pronouns, and they help to make our language more descriptive and precise. By understanding the different types of adjectives, we can use them effectively in our speaking and writing.

In this section, we will discuss adverbs, which are words that modify or describe verbs, adjectives, or other adverbs. Adverbs give more information about the action, manner, place, time, frequency, degree, or intensity of a verb.

Adverbs of Manner

Adverbs of manner describe how an action is performed. They answer the question “how?” and usually end in “-ly”, but not always. Here are some examples:

• She sings beautifully.
• He speaks softly.
• They ran quickly.
• The dog barked loudly.

Adverbs of manner can also be formed by adding “-ly” to some adjectives. For example:

• She is a quick learner. (adjective: quick)
• He is a careful driver. (adjective: careful)

Adverbs of Place

Adverbs of place describe where an action takes place. They answer the question “where?” and usually come after the verb or object. Here are some examples:

• She looked everywhere.
• He lives nearby.
• They went outside.
• The cat hid underneath the bed.

Adverbs of Time

Adverbs of time describe when an action takes place. They answer the question “when?” and can come at the beginning, middle, or end of a sentence. Here are some examples:

• She wakes up early every day.
• He arrived yesterday.
• They will leave soon.
• The concert starts tonight.

Adverbs of time can also be used to show the duration of an action. For example:

• She studied for hours.
• He worked all day.
• They talked for a long time.

In this section, we will discuss prepositions and their usage in English. Prepositions are words that show the relationship between a noun or pronoun and other words in a sentence. They usually indicate the position or direction of the noun or pronoun in relation to other elements in the sentence.

Prepositions of Time

Prepositions of time are used to indicate when an action took place. They include words such as “at,” “in,” and “on.”

• “At” is used for specific times, such as “at 2 pm” or “at midnight.”
• “In” is used for longer periods of time, such as “in the morning” or “in October.”
• “On” is used for dates, such as “on Monday” or “on July 4th.”

Prepositions of Place

Prepositions of place are used to indicate where something is located. They include words such as “in,” “on,” and “at.”

• “In” is used for enclosed spaces, such as “in the house” or “in the car.”
• “On” is used for surfaces, such as “on the table” or “on the floor.”
• “At” is used for specific locations, such as “at the park” or “at the beach.”

Prepositions of Direction

Prepositions of direction are used to indicate movement. They include words such as “to,” “from,” and “towards.”

• “To” is used to indicate movement towards a specific destination, such as “I am going to the store.”
• “From” is used to indicate movement away from a specific location, such as “I am coming from the park.”
• “Towards” is used to indicate movement in the direction of a specific location, such as “I am walking towards the museum.”

In this section, we will discuss the different types of conjunctions and their functions in English grammar. Conjunctions are words that connect words, phrases, or clauses in a sentence. They are essential in creating complex sentences and conveying relationships between ideas.

Coordinating Conjunctions

Coordinating conjunctions join words, phrases, or clauses that are of equal importance. They are easy to remember using the mnemonic device FANBOYS: for, and, nor, but, or, yet, so. Here are some examples:

• I like pizza and pasta.
• She is neither tall nor short.
• He wanted to go to the beach, but it was raining.

Subordinating Conjunctions

Subordinating conjunctions connect dependent clauses to independent clauses and establish a relationship between them. They are used to show cause and effect, time, condition, and contrast. Some examples of subordinating conjunctions are:

Here are some examples:

• Because it was raining, we stayed inside.
• Although she was tired, she stayed up to finish her work.
• While I was studying, my roommate was watching TV.

Correlative Conjunctions

Correlative conjunctions are pairs of words that work together to connect words, phrases, or clauses. They are used to show a relationship between two elements. Here are some examples:

• both…and
• either…or
• neither…nor
• not only…but also
• Both my sister and I like to read.
• Either you come with us or you stay here.
• Not only was he late, but he also forgot his homework.

In conclusion, conjunctions are important in creating complex sentences and conveying relationships between ideas. By understanding the different types of conjunctions and their functions, you can improve your writing and communication skills.

In English grammar, interjections are words or phrases that express strong emotions or feelings. They are also known as exclamations and are one of the eight parts of speech in English. Interjections are grammatically independent from the words around them, and they can often be removed from a sentence or context without affecting its basic meaning.

Interjections can be used to express a wide range of emotions, including surprise, joy, anger, frustration, and pain. Some common examples of interjections include “ wow ,” “ ouch ,” “ yay ,” “ oh no ,” and “ oops .” They can be used to add emphasis to a sentence or to convey a particular tone or mood.

It is important to note that interjections do not have any grammatical function in a sentence. They are not nouns, verbs, adjectives, or any other part of speech. Instead, they simply stand alone as a way to express emotion.

When using interjections in writing, it is important to consider the context in which they are being used. While they can be a useful tool for adding emphasis or conveying emotion, they can also be overused or misused, which can detract from the overall effectiveness of the writing.

Articles/Determiners

In English grammar, articles and determiners are words that are used with nouns to provide more information about them. They help us to understand the context and meaning of a sentence.

There are three articles in the English language: “ the ,” “ a, ” and “ an. ” “The” is known as the definite article because it refers to a specific noun that has already been mentioned or is known to the reader. For example, “The cat is sleeping on the sofa.” In this sentence, “the” refers to a specific cat that has already been mentioned or is known to the reader.

“A” and “an” are known as indefinite articles because they refer to any member of a group or class of nouns. “A” is used before words that begin with a consonant sound, while “an” is used before words that begin with a vowel sound. For example, “I need a pen” and “She ate an apple.”

Determiners

Determiners are words that come before a noun to provide more information about it. They can include articles, as well as words like “ this ,” “ that ,” “ these ,” and “ those .”

In addition to these, there are other types of determiners such as possessive determiners (e.g. “my,” “your,” “his,” “her,” “its,” “our,” and “their”), demonstrative determiners (e.g. “this,” “that,” “these,” and “those”), and quantifying determiners (e.g. “some,” “any,” “many,” “few,” “several,” etc.).

Determiners can also be used with adjectives to provide more information about a noun. For example, “She ate the delicious apple” and “I saw that beautiful sunset.”

Understanding articles and determiners is crucial for mastering English grammar. By using them correctly, you can convey your thoughts and ideas more clearly and effectively.

Frequently Asked Questions

What are the 8 parts of speech in English?

In English, there are eight parts of speech: nouns, pronouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, prepositions, conjunctions, and interjections. Each part of speech serves a different function in a sentence and helps to convey meaning.

What are some examples of different parts of speech?

Here are a few examples of different parts of speech:

• Noun: dog, cat, book, table
• Pronoun: he, she, it, they
• Verb: run, jump, sing, dance
• Adjective: happy, sad, tall, short
• Adverb: quickly, slowly, loudly, softly
• Preposition: in, on, at, under
• Conjunction: and, but, or, so
• Interjection: wow, oh, ouch, hooray

What is the difference between a noun and a verb?

A noun is a word that represents a person, place, thing, or idea. A verb is a word that represents an action, occurrence, or state of being. In other words, a noun is a subject or object in a sentence, while a verb is the action or occurrence that takes place.

What are the different types of nouns?

There are several different types of nouns, including:

• Common nouns: refer to general, non-specific people, places, things, or ideas (e.g. dog, city, book)
• Proper nouns: refer to specific people, places, things, or ideas and are always capitalized (e.g. John, Paris, The Great Gatsby )
• Concrete nouns: refer to tangible, physical objects (e.g. table, chair, car)
• Abstract nouns: refer to intangible concepts or ideas (e.g. love, happiness, freedom)
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Parts of Speech: A Super Simple Grammar Guide with Examples

Parts of speech are categories of words that perform similar grammatical roles in phrase and sentence structures. But what exactly are the different parts of speech and how do you know which words correspond to different grammatical categories? This article will explain parts of speech and how to identify, modify, and use them in simple and complex sentences. Let’s get started!

Parts of Speech

In the English language there are various parts of speech which are put together in order to form a sentence. Without these, the language would never be able to function.

What Are Parts Of Speech?

Parts of speech are word categories that are defined by the grammatical roles they play in sentence structures. The categories of words are organized by the grammatical functions and meanings they produce and convey.

In the English language, there are around ten common parts of speech. These include nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, pronouns, prepositions, conjunctions, interjections, determiners, and articles.

Open and Closed Word Classes

Closed word classes   are parts of speech that are consistent and do not have newer words introduced to them over time. These include pronouns, conjunctions, determiners, and prepositions.

Open word classes  are parts of speech that have newer words introduced to them over time. These include nouns, verbs, adjectives, interjections, and adverbs.

Different Parts of Speech (with Examples)

In this section, we are going to look a little more closely at the various parts of speech such as the verb, the noun, and the adjective, amongst others. This will allow us to gain a better understanding of how a sentence is formed and how the various parts of speech work.

The Noun (n.)

A noun is a word that gives a name to something, in some cases, you might hear them referred to as a ‘naming word.’ There are various different subcategories of nouns such as the proper noun, the collective noun, the possessive noun, and the common noun. Each one of these serves a different purpose, let’s look at this a little more closely.

Jeffrey, Korea, pen, New Year, dog, cat, elephant, garden, school, work, music, town, Manila, teacher, farmer, Bob, Sean, Michael, police officer, France, coffee, football, danger, happiness…

Example sentences:

• The teacher told the children to stop chattering in class.
• John is good at French but weak at History .

The Common Noun

A common noun is the most simple form of a noun and gives a name to an item.

• Here is a  cup .
• Do you want a  cake ?

The Proper Noun

The proper noun is used to name a specific item, for example, the names of places or people or perhaps a movie or song title .

• The capital of  England  is  London.
• Sarah  is beautiful.

The Collective Noun

A collective noun is used to refer to a group of nouns, for example, people or animal groups.

• The  swarm of bees was headed straight towards our picnic.
• At church on Sunday, the  choir  sings loudly.

The Possessive Noun

A possessive noun is used to show ownership of something, this is done by adding an apostrophe and an s, like in the following examples.

• This is my  dog’s  ball.
• That is  Sarah’s  friend.

The Verb (v.)

A verb is one of the most important parts of speech and is a word that is used to describe an action. There are three main types of verbs which are detailed below.

Walk , is , seem , realize , run , see , swim, stand, go, have, get, promise, invite, listen, sing, sit, laugh, walk…

Verb example sentences:

• Don’t try to run before you can walk .
• Did you kiss anybody?
• Leave me alone!

The Action Verb

An action verb does exactly what you might expect, it describes an action.

• The man  walked  down the street.
• I  laughed  at his joke.
• She  ran  to catch the bus before it left.
• The chef  chopped  the vegetables into small pieces for the salad.

The Linking Verb

A linking verb connects the subject of a sentence to a noun, adjective, or pronoun that describes or renames it. It does not show action, but rather links or connects the subject to a complement.

• Sarah  feels  cold.
• I  am  very tired.
• The flowers in the garden  are  blooming beautifully in the spring.
• The soup  smells  delicious and makes my mouth water.

The Modal Verb

A modal verb is used to ‘help’ the main verb and can show the speaker’s thoughts or attitude about what they are saying. For example, words such as might, must, could and can are all modal verbs.

• I  might  walk to the park this afternoon.
• He  can  eat the last slice of cake.
• You must listen to me!

The Pronoun (pron.)

A pronoun replaces a noun, and once again there are various types of pronouns within the English language. Each one is used differently, let’s take a look at some examples of this.

I , me , we , you , he , she , yours , himself, its, my, that, this, those, us, who, whom

Pronoun example sentences:

• Richard isn’t at work this week; he ‘s gone on holiday.
• Don’t tell  her  the truth.
• She tried it  herself .
• You can’t blame him for  everything .
• The woman  who  called yesterday wants to buy the house.

The Reflexive Pronoun

A reflexive pronoun is used to refer to self, for example, myself, yourself, or themselves.

• I am going to keep this last cupcake for  myself.
• Peter always puts  himself  first.

The Indefinite Pronoun

The indefinite pronoun is used to refer to a non-specific person or item, you might see words such as anything, nothing, few, everyone or all.

• Can you take  all ?
• I need to speak to  someone  about this rash on my arm.

The Possessive Pronoun

Possessive pronouns are used to show ownership or possession of a noun or object. They replace a noun phrase and indicate who owns or possesses the noun or object, for example, yours, mine, or theirs.

• This bag is not yours, it’s mine.
• Her book is so new, while his looks are vintage.

The Relative Pronoun

A relative pronoun is used to introduce an adjective clause. You might recognize these as words such as who, which, that, or whose.

• This is the woman  who  will be working with you.
• Is this the book  that  everyone is raving about?

The Adjective (adj.)

An adjective is a word that describes a noun or pronoun, there are thousands of adjectives within the English language.

Beautiful , seven , cute , second , tall , blue, angry, brave, careful, healthy, little, old, generous, red, smart, two, small, tall, some, good, big, useful, interesting…

Brown dog, red car, tall boy, fat cat, big garden.

Adjective example sentences:

• This is a  blue  car.
• The  small  squirrel ran up the tree.
• During the thunderstorm, we saw some  heavy  rain.
• My mother has  short  hair.
• The documentary on TV last night was very  interesting.
• My son has an  impressive  collection of toy soldiers.
• The weather is  hot  and  sunny  today.
• My vacation was  exciting .
• The leaves on that tree are  green  and  large.

The Adverb (adv.)

An adverb is used to modify, or further explain an adjective, verb, or another adverb. They can add more information to a sentence making it clearer and easier for the listener to imagine what is being described in detail. Most of the time, adverbs will end in the letters -ly but there are some exceptions to this rule such as the words “very” and “never”.

Neatly , tomorrow , very, badly, fully, carefully, hardly, nearly, hungrily, never, quickly, silently, well, really, almost…

Adverb example sentences:

• This is an  extremely  attractive photograph.
• I have a  very  large pet dog.
• My car drives  quickly.
• When I am running late for work, I eat my breakfast  rapidly.
• The boy is crying  loudly.
• She carefully preserved all his letters.

Determiners and Articles

Determiners and articles are parts of speech that are used with nouns or noun phrases to clarify them. They are usually placed in front of nouns (or noun phrases) and can help specify their identity, quantity, distance (from the speaker), or specific number (among other things).

• Determiners

Determiners are a part of speech that are placed in front of nouns to clarify their reference. They include categories such as:

• Articles  – a, an, the
• Numbers  – two, eight, ninety-nine
• Pronouns and possessive determiners  – his, her, its, your, my, their, our
• Difference determiners  – other, the other, another
• Demonstratives  – these, those, that, this
• Quantifiers  – a little, a few, much, many, some, any, enough, most
• Distributives  – half, both, every, each, all, neither, either
• Pre-determiners  – quite, such, rather, what.

Articles are a sub-category of determiners that serve as a type of adjective to identify nouns. They may be:

• Definitive  – which indicates that the noun’s identity is already known to the audience. The word  the  would be a definitive article because it indicates a noun that is already known to the reader/audience (“I am going to sit in  the  chair.”), or
• Indefinite  – indicates an unfamiliar noun, or references a noun for the first time, or shows a noun belongs to a certain class of objects. The words  a  and  an  are considered indefinite articles (“I am going to sit in  a  chair.”, “You are  an  accountant.”, or “I was born on  a Thursday.”).

The Conjunction (conj.)

A conjunction is used as a way of joining two or more ideas or words together. Most commonly you will see the words for, and, not, but, or, yet and so used as a conjunction.

And , however , still , but, or, so, after, since, before, either, neither, because, unless…

Conjunction example sentences:

• My boyfriend  and  I are going on a date.
• I will go to the shop  but  not before I have had something to eat.
• This is a gift  for  my friend.
• I was tired  yet  I still went to the gym.

The Preposition (prep.)

A preposition is used in English to show a relationship between two words or phrases. You might recognize a preposition as being words such as in, before, on, at, to, between etc.

In , on , at , about , according to , after , along, above, except, from, near, of, before, since, between, upon, with, to, after, toward…

Preposition example sentences:

• The cat is sitting  on  the wall.
• I am going to the salon  after  my dinner.
• The boy ran along the street  for  an hour.
• You will find the theatre  in  the town center.
• I saw that news in  the newspapers.

The Interjection (interj.)

An interjection could also be thought of as an exclamation. They are used to emotion, reaction or excitement and have no grammatical link to anything else within the sentence they appear.

Ahem!, aha!, gosh!, aw!, great!, hey!, hi!, hooray !, oh!, yeah!, oops!, phew!, eh!, oh!, ouch!, hi!, well!…

Interjection examples in sentences:

• Phew!  That was a close call.
• Wow!  Did you see how big that bird was?
• Oh,  I forgot to tell you that I saw your father last week.
• Hooray!  You passed your exam!
• Well , what did he say?
• Yeah ! She’s going with us tonight!

How To Determine A Part Of Speech In A Sentence

In order to determine a part of speech in a sentence, look at the word being used, its context, and what meanings it brings to the sentence structure. Here are some questions you can ask about a particular word in a sentence in order to figure out what part of speech it is:

• Is it a person, place, idea, name, or thing? It is a noun .
• Is the word used in place of a noun?  It is a pronoun .
• Does the word convey an action, occurrence, or state of being?  It is a verb .
• Does the word modify a noun?  It is an  adjective .
• Does the word modify a verb, adjective, or itself? It is an adverb .
• Is the word placed in front of a noun to form a modifying phrase? It is a preposition .
• Does the word link a phrase or clause? It is a   conjunction .
• Is the word a quick expression of emotion? It is an  interjection .
• Is the word placed before a noun to clarify it? It is a determiner  or an  article,  as explained above.

Parts of Speech and Sentence Construction

In sentence construction, parts of speech are present in what are known as the  clauses  of sentences.  Clauses   are groups of words that have a  subject  and a verb. The verb is also part of an entire verb phrase known as a  predicate .

Simple/Basic Sentences

In its simplest form, a sentence can have one independent clause .

For example, the sentence “I walk to the store” contains one clause.

• “I” is the subject of the clause, while “walk” is the verb.
• The ending phrase, “walk to the store” would be the verb phrase, or  predicate , of the sentence.

This entire sentence “I walk to the store” is an independent clause, expresses one subject doing one action — and is known as a  simple sentence .

Knowing this, apply the fact that nouns and pronouns will often be the subjects or objects of simple sentences , while verbs will convey actions. So once again:

• I  (subject, pronoun)  walk  (verb)  to  (preposition)  the  (article)  store  (object, noun).

Complex Sentences

Complex sentences contain an independent clause and one or more dependent clauses. These sentences use conjunctions such as because, since, which, or who to connect clauses. Consider the structure and an example below:

• Independent Clause: She reads a book
• Dependent Clause: because she wants to learn

By combining these clauses, one forms a complex sentence:  She reads a book because she wants to learn.

Other examples of complex sentences:

• Although the weather was cold, they decided to go for a hike.
• She completed her assignment before she went out with her friends.
• When you finish your homework, we can go to the movies.
• Because my coffee was too cold, I heated it in the microwave.
• If you save your money, you can buy a new bicycle.

Parts of Speech in English | Picture

English Parts of Speech Table Image 2

Parts of Speech Video

Learn all parts of speech in English with a useful video lesson.

Parts Of Speech Quiz

Here are some Parts Of Speech exercises for you to practice:

A. In the sentence “I ran to the tallest tree”, what part of speech is the word “tallest”?

• A preposition
• An adjective

B. In the 2000s, the word  staycation  described the act of staying home for a vacation. Since “staycation” is a noun and a new word, what class of words does it belong to?

• The Open word class
• The Closed word class
• The Infinitive word class

C. In the sentence “I’ll have a few tacos”, what part of speech is the phrase “a few”?

• Interjections

Answers: A) 3, B) 1, C) 3

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Parts of Speech

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The Parts of Speech – Definitions and Examples

The different parts of speech are the breakdown and classification of words in English that show their unique functions and properties. In core language, a single word can function as two or more parts of speech.

Differentiating between the 9 parts of speech is the first step to building your grammar skills and writing tools. Keep reading to learn the definitions and examples of each category!

What are the 9 Basic Parts of Speech?

A noun is any place, person, idea, or thing. Some examples of nouns include:

There are various classifications of nouns you can use in your writing. Proper nouns are specific names for places, persons, ideas, or things. Meanwhile, common nouns are generic class nouns. A possessive noun is another type of noun that demonstrates belonging. 

We can also classify this part of speech as an abstract noun, concrete noun, count noun, and uncountable noun.

The placement of the noun in a sentence also determines its function. A noun can be in the nominative or objective case. The nominative functions include subject and subject complement. And the types of objects are direct object, indirect object, and object of a preposition.

A quick introduction to pronouns shows they are classes of words that take the place of nouns. Some examples of pronouns include he, that, whoever, myself.

This quick guide to pronouns shows they can be classified as: 

• Personal pronoun (I, he, she, you, etc.)
• Demonstrative pronouns (that, those, these, this, etc.).
• Interrogative pronouns (what, when, why, how, etc.).
• Relative pronouns (who/whom, whose, which, etc.).
• Indefinite pronouns (anybody, everybody, somebody, everything, etc.).
• Reflexive pronouns (myself, yourself, herself, etc.).
• Intensive pronouns (myself, yourself, herself, etc.).

Pronouns can further be divided into first-person pronoun, second-person pronoun, and third-person pronoun.

A verb is a word that conveys time while showing a condition, an action, or the fact that something exists. All complete sentences should contain at least one verb unless using an interjection.

Verbs can be treated as either lexical verbs/action verbs (study, love, drink) or auxiliary verbs (seem, is, have). 

A verb phrase combines verbs with linking verbs and lexical categories of verbs. Some examples include:

• Has become.

Phrasal verbs are forms of verbs that consist of two or more words. Here are some examples:

• Put up with.

When you add “up with” after the simple verb “put,” you create a brand-new verb with a new meaning. Therefore, phrasal verbs should be treated as complete verbs because of their unique definitions.

Some verbs are reflexive. A reflexive verb is where the subject and object are one since the sentence uses reflexive pronouns like “himself” or “itself.”

Whether you’re using a lexical or auxiliary verb, this part of the speech always expresses time through the different tenses. For instance, the verb “eats” is a present-tense verb, and its past form is “ate.”

4. Adjective

Another part of speech is the adjective , which modifies or describes a noun or a pronoun. It typically answers the questions “what kind,” “which one,” or “how much.” For example:

The articles “a,” “an,” and “the” are sometimes categorized as adjectives. “The” is a definite article, and “a” and “an” are indefinite articles.

Adjective classes include:

• Absolute adjectives.
• Appositive adjectives.
• Attributive adjectives.
• Predicative adjectives.
• Compound adjectives.
• Qualitative adjectives.
• Denomial adjectives.
• Participial adjectives.
• Demonstrative adjectives.

Adverbs are a word class that modifies adjectives, verbs, and fellow adverbs. One frequent adverb marker is the suffix -ly, such as “healthily,” “badly,” and “swiftly.”

But the discussion of adverbs goes beyond words that describe actions. There are also adverbs of degree, place, time, and frequency. The English language also considers “most days,” “to visit my friend,” “very loudly,” and other adverbial phrases as adverbs.

Adverbial phrases are under the phrasal categories, including verb phrases, adjective phrases, etc.

6. Conjunction

A conjunction is a word that binds words, clauses, and phrases. “And,” “but,” “because,” and “consequently” are some examples of conjunctions.

Conjunctions make it easy to construct more complex sentences because you can easily add new clauses. The category distinctions of this part of speech are:

• Coordinating conjunctions (for, and, nor, but, or, yet, so, etc.)
• Subordinating conjunctions (after, although, unless, since, if, etc.)
• Correlative conjunctions (not only… but also, either… or, etc.)

7. Preposition

Prepositions show relations of space, time, and role between nouns, pronouns, and other words. They are at the start of prepositional phrases. Here are some examples of prepositions:

• Apart from.

8. Determiner

A determiner is like an adjective because it also modifies nouns. However, these words are essential for proper syntax as opposed to adjectives. They can be classified as indefinite and definite. New grammar rules now treat articles as determiners. Examples of determiners include:

• Which. 

9. Interjection

The last part of speech is the interjection which may have standalone functions in sentences. “Whoops,” “ouch,” “ah,” and “hooray” can be an entire sentence on their own.

Parts of Speech Chart

Analyzing the parts of speech is different for every individual language. Here’s an overview of the different categories in English.

When A Word is Also Two Different Kinds of Speech

Sometimes, words have more than one role in the English language. For example, some nouns can also act as adjectives called adjectival nouns. In the phrase “race car,” “race” modifies “car,” so its usage is as an adjective instead of a noun.

A noun can be used in verbal senses. Consider the word “work” in these sentences.

• My new work is more promising than the old one. (noun)
• Shew works in a new industry. (verb)

Open and Closed Word Classes

The two classifications of the parts of speech include open and closed classes. The open classes can be changed and added as the language changes. 

• Adjectives.

Meanwhile, closed classes are parts of speech that do not change. These include:

• Prepositions.
• Conjunctions.
• Articles and determiners.
• Interjections.

In some languages, verbs and adjectives form closed classes. This closedness of verbs is common in Basque and Persian verbs .

Linguistics , or the study of language, does not recommend the label “part of speech” anymore. Instead, the discipline favors “syntactic category” or “word class.”

What Part of Speech is With?

In the stricter sense, the only use of “with” is as a preposition. You can find it before a noun or a pronoun to form prepositional phrases. Use it to show togetherness, associations, and connections between people and objects.

What Part of Speech is And?

The conjunction “and” connects words, clauses, and phrases. It can also combine sentences that need to be presented at once.

What Part of Speech is My?

“My” is a possessive pronoun that can also act as an adjective, determiner, or interjection.

Are You Using the Parts of Speech the Right Way?

This guide has shown you the nine parts of speech and their grammatical functions. By now, you should already be able to give definitions and examples of each category, so they make sense. 

To correctly use the parts of speech, ask yourself, “what is the function of this word in the sentence?” Keep practicing until you master the traditional grammar rules of English!

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The 8 Parts of Speech in English Grammar

Table of Contents

Introduction, what are parts of speech, a list of 8 parts of speech.

A. Action Verbs : Action verbs denote physical or mental actions and are the most common type of verbs. These verbs can be conjugated in simple and continuous tenses

C. Linking Verbs: Linking verbs connect the subject of a sentence to a subject complement, which describes or identifies the subject.

READ MOR ABOUT VERBS

Prepositions

Conjunctions, interjections, analyzing sentence structure (parts of speech) .

Understanding Parts of Speech (9 Types With Examples)

What are parts of speech? In the American English language, parts-of-speech is a category to which a word is assigned in accordance with its syntactic functions. They exist under the verb , noun, pronoun, interjection , adjective , conjunction, adverb, and preposition forms.

Learn more about parts of the speech in this comprehensive worksheet…

What are parts of speech?

“Parts of speech” refers to the essential words used in sentence formation in the English language.

Every word used in a sentence structure plays an important role in defining the sentence’s meaning. These words use and placement give proper intentions in sentence structures.

Parts of speech are the basic grammar lessons taught during the primary phases of learning English.

Any word used in sentence formation falls into one of these categories for proper sentence structure.

Some of those words can be a part of one or more parts of speech. This topic further explores the essential parts of speech used in the English language.

Watch this as a video lesson

In total, there are nine categories of parts of speech

These nine parts of speech are namely: Verbs, Nouns , Adjectives, Determiners, Adverbs , Pronouns, Prepositions , Conjunctions, and Interjections.

Another additional classification is used as a part of speech, i.e. , Articles, a subprogram of determiners.

To comprehend the meaning and use of each word in the English language, it is essential to clearly understand the various parts of speech and select the right parts of speech form at the appropriate place in the sentence.

What are the 9 parts of speech with their functions?

Here are the nine parts of speech and how they impact the English language.

‘Verbs’ are the words used in a sentence to define the action/state of action being performed. Most of the sentences in sentence formation require the inclusion of verbs.

Some examples of verbs used in the English language are Love, Break, Fall , and Cry . These are the basic forms of verbs and are known as infinitives .

Most of the verbs used have two other major forms called participles . The use of these participles is for the formation of various verb-tense combinations.

These participles define the forms of verbs concerning the time of action/performance. These verb-tense combinations can be used in two types: Active voice and passive voice .

A ‘noun’ are words used in a sentence to give recognition or the name of an object, individual, or animal.

Nouns can be sub-classified into two major categories: Common nouns , which give generic descriptor names to things, and common items, such as a bat, a bicycle , etc. The other category of nouns is Proper nouns , which have specific descriptor names to refer to a specialized object, place, or individual, such as Charley, The Empire State Building, The Telegraph , etc.

Additionally, nouns can be classified as singular nouns and plural nouns based on the number of individuals/objects.

Singular Nouns

The definition of a Singular Noun is the same as that of a noun when used commonly. It carries the same definition as the noun: “A word referring towards an individual/object/event/material/place.”

Plural Nouns

The word plural relates to “more than one in certain languages or more than two in certain languages.”

Thus singular nouns can be converted to their plural noun format when there is an implication of more than one or two objects/individuals/places.

A general Singular/Common Noun can be turned into the appropriate form of a Plural Noun by adding a ‘s’/’es’/’ ies’/’ves.’ It is also initiated by changing ‘us’ to ‘i’, ‘is’ to ‘es’ , or ‘on’ to ‘a’ .

Some common nouns do not change when interchanged between their singular and plural noun forms. Some other common nouns do not fall under plural nouns and are called irregular nouns, which are made plural by changing the spelling or adding a suffix to the word.

‘Adjectives’ are words that give a description or modify the scope of nouns/pronouns by being specific. For example, adjectives used to define a noun can be red, small, hot, common, etc.

An adjective is usually placed before a noun or after the verb that it modifies. Three forms of adjectives are used to compare similar characteristics of different individuals/objects. These three degrees of comparison are:

• Positive/Absolute form

This comparison of adjectives defines the original form of the adjective as stated in English. For example, “this candy is tasty .” This degree of comparison states that no relative subject is available for comparison.

• Comparative form

This form of the adjective gives a relative comparison between two objects performing similar actions with identical characteristics. For example, “the candy we had today is tastier than the one we received yesterday.”

• Superlative form

This form of the adjective gives the superiority declaration of one object over similar objects possessing similar characteristics. For example, “this candy is the tastiest I have ever had in the last two years .”

Adjectives can be sub-classified based on their function in sentence formation. This sub-classification is:

• Possessive Adjectives

These adjectives show/represent the possessiveness of an object. For example, mine, my, his/her, their, its, etc.

• Interrogative Adjectives

These adjectives modify the noun/pronoun by interrogation. Only a select few adjectives are available in this form. For example, whose, which, what, and where.

• Demonstrative Adjectives

These adjectives describe the current state/position of the noun/pronoun concerning space/time. For example, this, these, those, that.

• Compound Adjectives

These adjectives are a result of the combination of two or more adjectives. The resulting adjective modifies the subject in the sentence. For example, hand-dried, heavy-weighted, spike-haired, etc.

‘Determiners’ are the words placed before a noun/pronoun group terms to refer to a single/multiple things. Some commonly used determiners in English are ‘a’, ‘the’, ‘some’, ‘any’, and ‘this.’ Determiners are generally placed before descriptive adjectives . It tells the reader more about the description of the noun being referred to.

Determiners are classified into sub-categories, articles, and demonstratives.

An ‘Article’ can be either definite or indefinite. An article modifies a noun/pronoun without specifying any description of the object. In English, an example of a ‘definite article’ is the , whereas examples of two ‘indefinite articles’ are a and an .

Here, the refers to specific things or things that are identified beforehand. A or a refer to non-specific things that have not been identified beforehand.

Demonstratives

A ‘Demonstrative’ is defined as a demonstrative adjective/pronoun based on its usage in the sentence. Some examples of demonstratives are ‘this’, ‘that’, and ‘those’ .

A determiner has the same rules of use as in the case of adjectives in sentence formation. Thus, confusion takes place when carefully choosing the type of parts of speech to assign when given a choice of either a determiner or adjective.

An ‘Adverb’ defines essential information about the verb, similar to what an adjective is to a noun. It provides a descriptor for a verb used in a sentence and some cases, can also describe an adjective or another adverb.

Some adverbs used in sentences with verbs are ‘slowly’, ‘hastily’, ‘unfortunately’, and ‘angrily’.

Adverbs are further sub-classified into various types based on their application in a sentence.

• Adverbs of Time (to inform about the occurrence of a verb), For example, ‘now’, ‘tomorrow’, and ‘soon’.
• Adverbs of Manner (to describe the action of a verb), For example, ‘hastily’, ‘slowly’, and ‘minutely’.
• Adverbs of Place (to indicate the place of action of the verb),
• Adverbs of Frequency (to describe the frequency of a verb action),
• Adverbs of Degree (to describe the intensity of an action),
• Conjunctive Adverbs (are used to link/act as a conjunction to two sentences).

A ‘Pronoun’ is a word used in specifically providing an alternate name for a non/noun phrase. They are alternate words for referring to an object/individual when the requirement of a noun is unnecessary, as the noun has been mentioned previously in some parts of the sentence.

Some examples of pronouns are ‘it’, ‘he/she’, and ‘himself/herself’.

Pronouns are sub-classified into different categories based on their use in the sentence.

Some of these sub-categories are:

• Relative Pronouns (to relate a part of a sentence with the other)
• Possessive Pronouns (to show possessiveness)
• Reflexive Pronouns (to refer back to the subject of discussion)
• Demonstrative Pronouns (to refer to specific objects/individuals)
• Interrogative Pronouns (to ask questions)
• Indefinite Pronouns (to avoid reference to any specific object/individual/place)
• Personal Pronouns (to use as substitutes for proper names)
• Subject Pronouns (to assign acting on an object)
• Object Pronouns (to assign receiving action towards an object)
• Reciprocal Pronouns (to express two-way/mutual relationship)
• Preposition

A ‘Preposition’ is a word used as a connective between a noun, a noun phrase, or a pronoun with another word.

Prepositions are used in sentence formations to convey these meanings:

• To show the direction towards/of something/someone
• To refer to the period of an action taking place
• To specify the location/position of an object
• To present the space and time relationship between objects

Based on their use and function, prepositions are classified into four subtypes:

• Prepositions of Time (to indicate the happening of an action/event)
• Preposition of Place (to indicate the location of an object)
• Preposition of Direction (to indicate the direction/orientation of an object)
• Prepositions of Spatial Relationship (to indicate an object moving away/towards a source)
• Conjunction

A ‘Conjunction’ is a word that combines two/more objects and behaves as connectives in a sentence. These can appear in the beginning/middle/end of the sentence following the location of the objects.

There are three types of conjunctions used in sentence formation:

• Coordinate conjunction (to combine two independent clauses )
• Subordinate conjunction (to combine an independent with a dependent clause)
• Correlation conjunction (to combine two phrases having equal weightage)

Interjection

An ‘Interjection’ is a word to convey the expression of a variety of emotions/feelings. As such, there is no specific rule for the use of interjection and where it is to be placed.

However, in most cases, it is placed at the beginning of the sentence. For example, some of the most commonly used interjections are ‘ouch’, ‘phew’, and ‘well’.

Parts of speech examples

Here are some examples of the parts of speech used in sentences. Note the placement and its relation with other parts of speech present in the sentence format.

• John is  cutting  a pipe.
• John intends to  come  to the office this Monday .
• Jogging  regularly is good for health.
• Drinking  and  driving  put other motorists in danger.
• Would you want to wear  a suit?
• I love  to sing  in between classes.

See another example in the image below.

• Juno  ran towards the classroom.
• The janitor  requested the students to clear their lockers.
• The monkey  was caged after being sedated.
• I gifted my brother a  phone .
• Why did you purchase the  book ?
• I misplaced the  manuscript .
• Do you want to eat some  ice cream ?
• Mum loved my new car .
• Daniel gifted  his brother  a Porsche.

• I purchased a blue suit for the reception.
• Mary purchased two oranges from the fruit seller.
• The curry is tasty .
• Juno’s brother is arrogant .
• The documentary that premiered on television was fascinating .
• Giovanni Giorgio is a great music composer.

• My house is currently under lease.
• This novel is lengthy.
• I purchased some fruits and vegetables.
• She sent me an expensive watch.
• Velma loved  the  dress gifted by her parents.
• Joyce and Jill watched  a  movie together.
• Grandma gave us materials to prepare  the   dessert.

• Typically , we visit Mom on Mondays.
• Don’t you taste the coffee to be  too  bitter?
• Do not be nervous. You will  eventually get the hang of it.
• The movie I watched was  very  scientific.
• It is  scorching hot inside the workshop.
• Can I visit the office  today ?

• His aunt will be staying at the apartment for a while .
• He is the man I was referring to.
• I found my missing luggage outside the airport.

• I won’t be coming  to  the office  in  the afternoon.
• He arranged the cutlery  on  the table.
• Bhaskar made the dog hide  under  its bed.
• I enjoy strolling by the lake in the mornings.

• James  and  I trekked to the hilltop today.
• I stayed back home  because  I felt uneasy.
• He did not enjoy the yogurt ,  yet  he finished it.

• Interjection
• Hurray!  We got the funding.
• Ouch!  That wound looks severe.
• Wow!  You look great in the wedding gown.
• Oh my God !  I hope he is safe.

See an example in the image below.

Words with more than one job

Many parts of speech can have more than one function/job in the sentence. This improves the versatility of the words being used and makes the use more situational in its placement and conveyance of meaning.

• Myers can shift for herself (Preposition)
• Give prayers to the Almighty; for He is the one above all (Conjunction)
• We require more women to have the same vigor. (Adjective)
• More of the women died in the operating room than in the cabin. (Pronoun)
• Agatha needs to shut the gossiping and work more (Adverb)

To see how all the objects work together, see the table below.

Here is a chart showing the parts of speech:

How to identify parts of speech

In sentence formation, it often becomes difficult to ascertain the parts of speech represented by each word. To help out and to make the process of identification easier, follow these steps:

• Identify any word which names an object/individual/place in a generalized form as a noun .
• To identify a specific noun, use pronouns .
• Any words which describe/identify actions/performance are verbs .
• Any word that modifies or gives a greater definition to nouns is an adjective.
• Any word that modifies or gives meaning to the actions of verbs, are adverbs.
• It is easy to pick out prepositions as they describe relationships between a noun/pronoun with other nouns/pronouns.
• Any joiner used to join two clauses is a conjunction .
• Exclamations generally follow any interjections in the text.

• Parts of speech

More parts of speech:

• Conjunctions
• Prepositions
• Possessive nouns
• Irregular plural nouns
• Proper nouns
• Concrete nouns
• Collective nouns
• Possessive and plural nouns
• Verbs: The Definitive Guide
• Nouns | Explore Definition, Examples & Types with Examples
• What Are Pronouns? Definitions and Examples
• What Are Adverbs? (with Examples)
• Interjections – Explore Meaning, Definition, Usage and Examples
• What Is A Conjunction? Types & Examples
• The 9 Parts of Speech: Definitions and Examples
• What Is a Determiner?
• The 8 Parts of Speech: Examples and Rules
• Adverbs – What is It? Explore the Meaning, Definition, Types, Usage and Examples

Inside this article

Fact checked: Content is rigorously reviewed by a team of qualified and experienced fact checkers. Fact checkers review articles for factual accuracy, relevance, and timeliness. Learn more.

About the author

Dalia Y.: Dalia is an English Major and linguistics expert with an additional degree in Psychology. Dalia has featured articles on Forbes, Inc, Fast Company, Grammarly, and many more. She covers English, ESL, and all things grammar on GrammarBrain.

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Parts of Speech - Definition, 8 Types and Examples

In the English language , every word is called a part of speech. The role a word plays in a sentence denotes what part of speech it belongs to. Explore the definition of parts of speech, the different parts of speech and examples in this article.

Table of Contents

Parts of speech definition, different parts of speech with examples.

• Sentences Examples for the 8 Parts of Speech

A Small Exercise to Check Your Understanding of Parts of Speech

Frequently asked questions on parts of speech, what is a part of speech.

Parts of speech are among the first grammar topics we learn when we are in school or when we start our English language learning process. Parts of speech can be defined as words that perform different roles in a sentence. Some parts of speech can perform the functions of other parts of speech too.

• The Oxford Learner’s Dictionary defines parts of speech as “one of the classes into which words are divided according to their grammar, such as noun, verb, adjective, etc.”
• The Cambridge Dictionary also gives a similar definition – “One of the grammatical groups into which words are divided, such as noun, verb, and adjective”.

Parts of speech include nouns, pronouns, verbs, adverbs, adjectives, prepositions, conjunctions and interjections.

8 Parts of Speech Definitions and Examples:

1. Nouns are words that are used to name people, places, animals, ideas and things. Nouns can be classified into two main categories: Common nouns and Proper nouns . Common nouns are generic like ball, car, stick, etc., and proper nouns are more specific like Charles, The White House, The Sun, etc.

Examples of nouns used in sentences:

• She bought a pair of shoes . (thing)
• I have a pet. (animal)
• Is this your book ? (object)
• Many people have a fear of darkness . (ideas/abstract nouns)
• He is my brother . (person)
• This is my school . (place)

Also, explore Singular Nouns and Plural Nouns .

2. Pronouns are words that are used to substitute a noun in a sentence. There are different types of pronouns. Some of them are reflexive pronouns, possessive pronouns , relative pronouns and indefinite pronouns . I, he, she, it, them, his, yours, anyone, nobody, who, etc., are some of the pronouns.

Examples of pronouns used in sentences:

• I reached home at six in the evening. (1st person singular pronoun)
• Did someone see a red bag on the counter? (Indefinite pronoun)
• Is this the boy who won the first prize? (Relative pronoun)
• That is my mom. (Possessive pronoun)
• I hurt myself yesterday when we were playing cricket. (Reflexive pronoun)

3. Verbs are words that denote an action that is being performed by the noun or the subject in a sentence. They are also called action words. Some examples of verbs are read, sit, run, pick, garnish, come, pitch, etc.

Examples of verbs used in sentences:

• She plays cricket every day.
• Darshana and Arul are going to the movies.
• My friends visited me last week.
• Did you have your breakfast?
• My name is Meenakshi Kishore.

4. Adverbs are words that are used to provide more information about verbs, adjectives and other adverbs used in a sentence. There are five main types of adverbs namely, adverbs of manner , adverbs of degree , adverbs of frequency , adverbs of time and adverbs of place . Some examples of adverbs are today, quickly, randomly, early, 10 a.m. etc.

Examples of adverbs used in sentences:

• Did you come here to buy an umbrella? (Adverb of place)
• I did not go to school yesterday as I was sick. (Adverb of time)
• Savio reads the newspaper everyday . (Adverb of frequency)
• Can you please come quickly ? (Adverb of manner)
• Tony was so sleepy that he could hardly keep his eyes open during the meeting. (Adverb of degree)

5. Adjectives are words that are used to describe or provide more information about the noun or the subject in a sentence. Some examples of adjectives include good, ugly, quick, beautiful, late, etc.

Examples of adjectives used in sentences:

• The place we visited yesterday was serene .
• Did you see how big that dog was?
• The weather is pleasant today.
• The red dress you wore on your birthday was lovely.
• My brother had only one chapati for breakfast.

6. Prepositions are words that are used to link one part of the sentence to another. Prepositions show the position of the object or subject in a sentence. Some examples of prepositions are in, out, besides, in front of, below, opposite, etc.

Examples of prepositions used in sentences:

• The teacher asked the students to draw lines on the paper so that they could write in straight lines.
• The child hid his birthday presents under his bed.
• Mom asked me to go to the store near my school.
• The thieves jumped over the wall and escaped before we could reach home.

7. Conjunctions are a part of speech that is used to connect two different parts of a sentence, phrases and clauses . Some examples of conjunctions are and, or, for, yet, although, because, not only, etc.

Examples of conjunctions used in sentences:

• Meera and Jasmine had come to my birthday party.
• Jane did not go to work as she was sick.
• Unless you work hard, you cannot score good marks.
• I have not finished my project,  yet I went out with my friends.

8. Interjections are words that are used to convey strong emotions or feelings. Some examples of interjections are oh, wow, alas, yippee, etc. It is always followed by an exclamation mark.

Examples of interjections used in sentences:

• Wow ! What a wonderful work of art.
• Alas ! That is really sad.
• Yippee ! We won the match.

Sentence Examples for the 8 Parts of Speech

• Noun – Tom lives in New York .
• Pronoun – Did she find the book she was looking for?
• Verb – I reached home.
• Adverb – The tea is too hot.
• Adjective – The movie was amazing .
• Preposition – The candle was kept under the table.
• Conjunction – I was at home all day, but I am feeling very tired.
• Interjection – Oh ! I forgot to turn off the stove.

Let us find out if you have understood the different parts of speech and their functions. Try identifying which part of speech the highlighted words belong to.

• My brother came home  late .
• I am a good girl.
• This is the book I  was looking for.
• Whoa ! This is amazing .
• The climate  in  Kodaikanal is very pleasant.
• Can you please pick up Dan and me on  your way home?

Now, let us see if you got it right. Check your answers.

• My – Pronoun, Home – Noun, Late – Adverb
• Am – Verb, Good – Adjective
• I – Pronoun, Was looking – Verb
• Whoa – Interjection, Amazing – Adjective
• Climate – Noun, In – Preposition, Kodaikanal – Noun, Very – Adverb
• And – Conjunction, On – Preposition, Your – Pronoun

What are parts of speech?

The term ‘parts of speech’ refers to words that perform different functions in a sentence  in order to give the sentence a proper meaning and structure.

How many parts of speech are there?

There are 8 parts of speech in total.

What are the 8 parts of speech?

Nouns, pronouns, verbs, adverbs, adjectives, prepositions, conjunctions and interjections are the 8 parts of speech.

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8 Parts of Speech

The 8 parts of speech in English are: Nouns, Adjectives, Adverbs, Verbs, Prepositions, Pronouns, Conjunctions, and Interjections.

A part of speech is a category of words that have similar grammatical functions or properties. In other words, they play similar roles in a sentence. For instance, a verb shows the action of a subject or the subject's state of being. 

We'll now look in more detail at the function of each of these parts of speech. 

Understanding the 8 Parts of Speech

Nouns are words used to talk about people, places, things, or ideas/concepts. Here are some examples:

• Person: The President
• Place: London
• Thing: Table
• Idea/concept: Neo-liberalism

So it may be naming something we can touch ( e.g. table; book; car ) or something we cannot touch ( e.g. Neo-liberalism; happiness; wish ).

There are both common nouns, used for classes of   people, places, things, or ideas/concepts,  and proper nouns, which is their given name, always with a capital letter.

Common Nouns

• political party

Proper Nouns

• Chester Avenue

Learn more about the various types of noun >>

Another of the 8 parts of speech are adjectives. They describe nouns or pronouns. They can come before or after the noun/pronoun they describe:

Absolute Adjectives

• The  large  shopping complex
• The  excited  child
• She is  happy
• It was a  shocking  film
• Her dress was  lovely
• He's a  good-looking  man

These are  absolute adjectives , but they can also be  comparative  (comparing two or more things) or  superlative  (showing degree or quality):

Comparative Adjectives

• She's  fitter than the others
• Their house is bigger
• I ran faster  than you
• Cats are more agile than dogs
• Sue's  more tired than Tim

Superlative Adjectives

• She's the fittest
• Their house is the biggest
• I ran the fastest
• Cats are the most agile
• Sue's the most tired

There are various other types of adjective. Learn more about the different types of adjectives >>

Adverbs modify verbs, other adverbs, and adjectives. There are adverbs of manner, time, place and degree . Here are examples of each being modified in relation to verbs, adverbs, and adjectives (the word being modified is underlined):

Adverbs Modifying Verbs

• He runs fast
• Ian quickly left the room
• She spoke slowly

Adverbs Modifying Other Adverbs

• He runs exceptionally  fast
• Ian very  quickly left the room
• She spoke extremely  slowly

Adverbs Modifying Adjectives

• She's really excited
• He's happily married
• The elegantly designed dress is mine

Verbs form part of the predicate of a sentence.

In relation to the subject, they are used to express a physical action (e.g. walk; speak; show) or a mental action (e.g. think; feel; want). They can also express a state of being , mainly with the verb 'to be' but also some others.

Here are some examples:

Physical Action

• He ran home
• They chose the blue one

Mental Activity

• I am thinking about it
• Ian guessed the answer
• She believes in ghosts

State of Being

• She is a police woman
• They seem worried

These though are main verbs. They have many other uses in a sentence so you should read about all the types of verbs further. 

Prepositions

Another of the 8 parts of speech are prepositions. These show the relationship between two words or phrases in a sentence. They precede a noun or pronoun.

Commons examples of prepositions are  above,  up, upon,  at, before, behind,  since, to, through, under, until, with, within,  about, against, along, around,  beside, between,  down, during,  below, by,  except, for, from, in, into, like, near, of, off, on,  toward.

In these example sentences with prepositions, the two words whose relationship is being expressed are underlined and the prepositions are in bold:

• The book is on the table
• He is the leader of the conservative party
• The boy picked up the toy under the sofa
• This is a present for your mother

Pronouns replace nouns and they prevent us from repeating the noun in a sentence. These are the types of pronouns with some examples:

• Personal e.g. I; you; they; she
• Possessive e.g. mine; yours; his; theirs
• Relative e.g. who; which; that; whom
• Demonstrative e.g. this; these; those
• Reciprocal e.g. one another; each other
• Emphatic / Reflexive e.g. myself; herself; itself; ourselves
• Interrogative e.g. what; which; whom; whose

Here are some examples of these words used in sentences:

• Martha decided she would leave
• Why don't you use his  car instead of mine
• Mick is a person who learns quickly
• Shall we buy some of these ?
• They began to argue with each other
• Jenny is pleased with  herself
• What time is he coming?

Conjunctions

Conjunctions are the of the 8 parts of speech responsible for joining together words, phrases, or clauses. There are three types:

• Coordinating: and; or; but; so; yet; for; nor
• Correlative: neither/nor; either/or; not only/but also
• Subordinating: e.g. although; because; while; which; where; until

Coordinating Conjunctions

Used to connect like for like words (e.g. noun+noun):

• I like apples and oranges ( 2 nouns )
• His speech was slow but effective ( 2 adjectives )
• Shall I say it loudly or quietly? ( 2 adverbs )

Or simple sentences (independent clauses):

• I find the music annoying but she finds It pleasant
• She came to the lecture late so she missed everything important
• She took her umbrella for it was raining hard

Correlative Conjunctions

Used to join alternative or equal elements:

• He felt neither happy nor sad about it
• Sue had to decide to either quit or carry on
• I went not only to Australia but also to New Zealand

Subordinating Conjunctions

Used to join subordinate clauses to main clauses:

• The government won't vote on the bill until both parties agree
• I'm still not tired although it is late
• I'll eat the dish which you don't like

Interjections

Interjections are words used to express an emotion or a sentiment such as surprise, joy, disgust, fear, excitement, pain, or enthusiasm.

They usually appear at the start of a sentence and are not connected to it grammatically. Here are some examples of interjections in sentences:

• Wow , that's an amazing score!
• Oh , I didn't know you failed the exam
• Well , we better not leave too late
• Ow , that really hurt!
• Ah , I understand now
• Oops , I've forgotten to bring the sandwiches

Learn more about interjections >>

Are there only 8 Parts of Speech?

Sometimes rather than 8 parts of speech, you may see 9 or 10 listed. This is because some people treat articles and determiners  as separate categories. 

However, when there are only 8 parts of speech considered (as above), this is because as these two types of word modify nouns, they are classified under adjectives. 

Now practice what you have learned in our identifying parts of speech quiz

More on Sentence Structure:

Types of Clauses in English Grammar - Independent and Dependent Clause

The two types of clauses in English grammar are the independent and dependent clause. Both have a subject and verb which makes them clauses, but while independent clauses express a complete thought, dependent clauses do not. This is the main distinction.

Nominalisation in English Grammar: High Level Writing Tips

Nominalisation is an important aspect of academic writing. This lesson teachers you what this is and how you can use it effectively in your writing.

Subject Complements: Predicate Adjectives and Predicate Nominatives

Here we demystify subject complements, predicate adjectives, and predicate nominatives with simple explanations and examples.

Examples of Parallelism in English Grammar

View examples of parallelism in English grammar that show you correct and incorrect parallel sentences.

How to Use Either and Neither with Examples

Advice on how to use either and neither in English grammar. They can be adjectives, adverbs, pronouns and conjunctions.

Parts of a Sentence: Subject, Verbs, Objects, Predicates, Complements

The main parts of a sentence are subjects, verbs, objects, predicates, and subject complements. All of these have a specific purpose within the structure of a sentence.

Using Object Complements in a Sentence

Using object complements in a sentence enhances your ability to convey specific information about actions and their outcomes.

Parallelism Grammar Rules (Parallel Structure)

Parallelism is about balancing the grammatical structure of words, phrases and clauses in your sentences. Parallel structure will improve your writing's coherence.

Phrases and Clauses - Building good sentences

Phrases and clauses are the key building blocks of sentences. A clause contains a subject and a verb and can express a complete thought. A phrase does not contain a subject or verb.

Direct and Indirect Objects: The Differences

Direct and indirect objects are key parts of most sentences. A direct object is the receiver of action while indirect object identifies to or for whom or what the action of the verb is performed.

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Introduction to grammar

Parts of Speech

The  parts of speech  explain how a word is used in a sentence.

There are eight main parts of speech (also known as word classes):  nouns, pronouns, adjectives, verbs, adverbs, prepositions, conjunctions  and  interjections .

Most  parts of speech  can be divided into sub-classes. Prepositions can be divided into prepositions of time, prepositions of place etc. Nouns can be divided into proper nouns, common nouns, concrete nouns etc.

It is important to know that a word can sometimes be in more than one part of speech. For example with the word  increase .

Increase  can be a verb e.g. Prices  increased and  increase  can also be a noun e.g. There was an  increase  in the number of followers.

A list of parts of speech in English grammar include the following:

A verb is used to show an action or a state of being

go, write, exist, be

A noun is a word used to refer to people, animals, objects, substances, states, events, ideas and feelings. A noun functions as a subject or object of a verb and can be modified by an adjective.

John, lion, table, freedom, love ...

3. Adjective

Adjectives are used to describe or specify a noun or pronoun

good, beautiful, nice, my  ...

An adverb is used to modify a verb, adjective and other adverbs.

completely, never, there  ...

A pronoun is used in the place of a noun or phrase.

I, you, he, she, it  ...

6. Preposition

Prepositions are used before nouns to form a phrase that shows where, when, how and why

in, above, to, for, at ...

7. Conjunction

Conjunctions join clauses or sentences or words

and, but, when ...

8. Interjection

Interjections are used to show surprise or emotion.

oh!, Good Lord

Examples of parts of speech

Here are some examples of parts of speech: My ( adjective ) friend ( noun ) speaks ( verb ) English ( noun ) fluently ( adverb ). Oh! ( interjection ) I (  pronoun ) went ( verb ) to ( preposition ) school ( noun ) and ( conjunction ) I (  pronoun ) met ( verb ) Fred ( noun ).

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Conjunctions

Prepositions, interjections, categorizing the parts of speech.

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part of speech , lexical category to which a word is assigned based on its function in a sentence.

There are eight parts of speech in traditional English grammar: noun, pronoun, verb , adjective , adverb , conjunction, preposition , and interjection . In linguistics , parts of speech are more typically called word classes .

A noun names a person, place, thing, or idea. There are many subcategories of nouns, including common nouns, proper nouns, collective nouns, and abstract nouns.

Common nouns name basic things that can be seen and touched. Examples of common nouns include dog , banana , table , and book .

• The dog ate a banana .
• The book was on the table .

Proper nouns name specific people, places, and things, and they begin with a capital letter . Examples of proper nouns include George, New York City , Empire State Building , and Atlantic Ocean .

• George sailed the Atlantic Ocean .
• The Empire State Building is in New York City .

Collective nouns name groups of people or things. Examples of collective nouns include team , flock , litter , and batch .

• The team won the game.
• The flock flew south for the winter.

Abstract nouns name things that cannot be seen or touched. Examples of abstract nouns include happiness , truth , friendship , and beauty .

• He brings her so much happiness .
• The friendship is a strong one.

A pronoun is used in place of a noun. There are many subcategories of pronouns, including but not limited to personal pronouns, possessive pronouns, and reflexive pronouns.

Personal pronouns replace names of people, places, things, and ideas. Examples of personal pronouns include she , he , it , and they .

• They enjoyed the party.
• Mikey likes it .

Possessive pronouns replace nouns and indicate ownership. Because they modify nouns, they are also frequently categorized as adjectives. Examples of possessive pronouns include his , its , mine , and theirs .

• The house is theirs .
• The parrot knows its name.

Reflexive pronouns replace nouns when the subject and object in a sentence are the same. Examples of reflexive pronouns include myself , herself , themselves , and oneself .

• She baked a cake all by herself .
• They prepared themselves for the adventure.

A verb indicates a state of doing, being, or having. There are three main subcategories of verbs: doing verbs, being verbs, and having verbs.

Doing verbs indicate actions. Examples of doing verbs include run , wash , explain , and wonder .

• Oliver washed the windows.
• I wonder where the cat is hiding.

Being and having verbs do not indicate action and are considered relating (or linking) verbs because they connect one piece of information to another. Examples of being and having verbs include am , are , has , and own .

• We are at the store.
• John has a red baseball cap.

An adjective describes or modifies a noun or pronoun.

Adjectives provide information about the qualities or classifications of a person or thing. Examples of adjectives include tall , purple , funny , and antique .

• The Willis Tower is a tall building.
• There were several antique cars in the parade.

An adverb describes or modifies verbs, adjectives, and other adverbs.

Adverbs provide information about the manner in which things are done, as well as when, where, and why they are done. Examples of adverbs include quickly , extremely , fiercely , and yesterday .

• The boy ran quickly through the rainstorm.
• That was a fiercely competitive game yesterday.

A conjunction links words, phrases, and clauses. There are two main subcategories of conjunctions: coordinating conjunctions and subordinating conjunctions.

Coordinating conjunctions link words, phrases, and clauses that are equally important in a sentence. Examples of coordinating conjunctions include and , but , or , and so .

• The students read short stories and novels.
• Liz went to the movies but not to dinner.

Subordinating conjunctions link subordinate clauses to a sentence. Examples of subordinating conjunctions include because , although , before , and since .

• The team is cheering because it is excited.
• Henry had Swiss cheese on his burger although he preferred cheddar.

A preposition provides information about the relative position of a noun or pronoun. Prepositions can indicate direction, time, place, location, and spatial relationships of objects. Examples of prepositions include on , in , across , and after .

• The cat ran across the road.
• The pencil is in the drawer.

An interjection acts as an exclamation. Interjections typically express emotional reactions to information in an adjoining sentence. Examples of interjections include eek , wow , oops , and phew .

• Eek ! That was a huge spider.
• Oops ! I didn’t mean to slam the door.

Although the number of parts of speech is traditionally fixed at eight, some grammarians consider there to be additional parts of speech. For example, determiners (also called determinatives) modify nouns and are therefore generally considered to be adjectives, but they differ from other adjectives in that their exact meaning is supplied by context . They include articles, demonstrative pronouns, possessive pronouns, and quantifiers. Examples of determiners include the , an , that , your , and many .

Over the years grammarians have also proposed changes in how parts of speech are categorized. The 2002 edition of the Cambridge Grammar of the English Language , for example, placed pronouns as a subcategory of nouns.

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Parts of speech in english – video.

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In this lesson, you can learn about parts of speech in English.

How many parts of speech are there in english can you name them, and explain what they do, understanding parts of speech —nouns, verbs, adjectives, and so on—can help you to understand english sentence structure and how english grammar works., in this class, you’ll learn the basic information about parts of speech, you’ll see some ways that parts of speech can be more complicated than you might expect, and you’ll have several chances to practice, quiz: parts of speech in english.

Now test your understanding of the different parts of speech by trying this quiz. There are 20 questions, which get harder as you go through it!

When you have finished, click ‘View Questions’ to see all the correct answers and read the explanations. There are links to further study resources in the explanations.

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1 . Question

For the first five questions, answer true or false.

True or false: a word can be different parts of speech depending on its function and meaning in the sentence.

Review part three of the lesson if you need help with this one.

2 . Question

True or false: a noun can be a word or a phrase.

3 . Question

True or false: if a word can be a noun, it can only be a noun.

4 . Question

True or false: when analysing parts of speech, you don’t need to think about what the sentence means.

5 . Question

True or false: articles (‘the’, ‘a’), demonstratives (‘this’, ‘that’), quantifiers (‘some’, ‘few’) and possessive adjectives (‘your’, ‘their’) are all determiners.

Remember that determiners specify the noun you’re referring to. Do all these words do this?

6 . Question

For the next five questions, choose the part of speech described.

What part of speech can be an action or a state?

• Interjections
• Conjunctions

‘Run’ is an action and ‘understand’ is a state.

7 . Question

What part of speech can describe verbs, adjectives, adverbs or whole sentences?

• Prepositions

8 . Question

What part of speech represents or replaces nouns?

9 . Question

What part of speech expresses an emotion or can be used to react to something?

10 . Question

Which part of speech doesn’t indicate something about a noun?

• Determiners

11 . Question

For the next five questions, match the words in the sentence with the parts of speech.

“He slept badly.”

Sort elements

12 . Question

Match the words in the sentence with the parts of speech.

“She has bought a second-hand car.”

• noun phrase

This time, you’re not analysing each word but the function of word groups and phrases in the sentence.

13 . Question

“Um, can you stop making so much noise, please?”

• ‘um’ and ‘please’
• 'can' and 'stop'
• 'you'
• 'making so much noise'

14 . Question

“Is this your bag or mine?”

• conjunction
• (possessive) pronoun

15 . Question

“Hey! Give his new watch back to him.”

• interjection
• preposition

16 . Question

For the last five questions, tick all the words that are correct.

Which words can be nouns?

You need to choose three answers.

17 . Question

Which words can be adverbs?

Only one word here is not an adverb.

18 . Question

Which words can be determiners?

This time there are two correct answers.

19 . Question

Which words can be more than one part of speech?

Two answers are correct; one of the others doesn’t even exist!

20 . Question

Which words are conjunctions?

• nevertheless

This is a deliberately difficult question to end with! A conjunction must be followed by a noun (or noun phrase) and then a verb, with no commas.

So, first question: how many parts of speech are there?

Well, we did a Google search, and many of the top results said ‘eight’. So there must be eight parts of speech in English.

Wrong! There are nine.

So, what are they?

1. Guide to Parts of Speech in English

Number one: nouns. Nouns can be things, animals, or people, like doctor, pencil, tree or cat.

Nouns can also be ideas or abstract things, like idea, happiness, time or money.

Number two: verbs. Verbs can be actions, like do, run, fly or win.

Verbs can also describe states, like be, love, believe or understand.

Number three: adjectives. Adjectives describe nouns. For example: red, big, metal, or beautiful.

Number four: adverbs . Adverbs can describe verbs, meaning they describe how someone does something. For example, quickly, loudly, angrily or well.

Adverbs can also describe adjectives, other adverbs, or even whole sentences. For example, very is an adverb which can describe an adjective— very slow —or another adverb— very slowly.

Unfortunately or sometimes are adverbs which can be used to add information to a whole sentence.

For example:

• Unfortunately, they missed the train and were late to their own wedding!
• Sometimes, I wish I’d made different choices in life.

So, adverbs are a little more complicated. Here’s a good way to remember it: adjectives and adverbs both describe other words. They are both used to add information to something else.

Adjectives describe nouns, and adverbs describe everything else: verbs, adjectives, adverbs and whole sentences.

Number five: pronouns.

Pronouns replace or represent nouns. For example, I, you, she or they are pronouns which represent different people.

You use pronouns to avoid repeating the same word, or to refer to something when it’s obvious what you mean.

• How was the weather there?

There is a pronoun which refers to a place. If you’ve already mentioned the place you’re talking about, you don’t need to say it again.

Another example:

• Give me two, please.

Two is a pronoun which refers to a quantity of something which has already been mentioned. The person you’re talking to already knows what you’re talking about.

Number six: prepositions.

Prepositions usually go before a noun or noun phrase. What’s their job?

Prepositions can do two basic things: first, they can add an idea of time, place, or movement to a noun. For example:

• on Wednesday
• in the corner
• towards the door

Secondly, prepositions can connect other words to a noun, or a pronoun.

For example, think about the verb depend on. The preposition on connects the verb depend to the object of the verb. For example:

• It depends on the cost.

Usually, the noun or noun phrase goes after the preposition.

However, sometimes the preposition can link to a noun (or pronoun) earlier in the sentence. For example:

• What does it depend on?

Here, on links to the pronoun what.

Number seven: conjunctions.

Conjunctions connect two things. A conjunction can connect two words:

• I like cake and ice-cream.

A conjunction can connect two phrases:

• Do you want to go now or wait till this afternoon?

You can also use a conjunction to connect two clauses:

• Although I’ve been trying to learn for years, I’m still really bad at drawing.

Number eight: determiners

Determiners go before a noun. They include words like a, the, this or that, which help to specify which noun you’re talking about.

Words like my, your, his, her, etc. are also determiners. They specify which noun you’re talking about by saying who something belongs to.

Determiners can also tell you how many of something there are. Look at three examples:

• ten bananas
• some people
• both of my brothers

The words ten, some and both are determiners.

Number nine: interjections

Interjections are different, because they aren’t normally part of a sentence.

Interjections are words or phrases which show how you feel. For example:

So, now you know about the nine parts of speech in English.

2. Practice with Parts of Speech in English

Let’s practice! Look at three sentences. Each sentence has five words.

• They told me about it.
• Look in the big cupboard.
• Put it there, but carefully.

Can you identify which part of speech each word is? Pause the video and think about your answers.

How did you do? Could you identify the parts of speech correctly?

Let’s look at one more.

• I’m staying in this evening.

What part of speech are these words? Think about it.

So, I is a pronoun, am is a verb, and staying is also a verb.

What about in? Did you say it’s a preposition?

It’s not a preposition; it’s an adverb.

How does this work? We had the word in in one of the sentences you saw before, and it was a preposition.

So, what’s going on?

3. The Same Word Can be More than One Part of Speech

Some words can only be one thing.

For example, the words independence or hair can only be nouns.

Believe and destroy can only be verbs.

However, many words can be more than one part of speech.

There are two things happening here.

First, a word can be two different things, which have the same written form and the same pronunciation.

Think about the word win. Is it a noun or a verb?

It can be both.

• I’m sure they’ll win the game this weekend.
• We’ll be hoping for a win in the big game this weekend.

Many words are like this. Another example: red can be an adjective or a noun.

• What do you think about this red for the kitchen?
• I like that red top she was wearing.

This is very common: very often, a word with one written form can be two (or more) different parts of speech.

We told you there are two things happening here; what’s the other?

Sometimes, a word can be different parts of speech depending on its function in the sentence.

Look at two sentences:

• I have a few photos of my grandparents.
• Sure, you can have a few.

Here’s a question: what part of speech is few in these sentences?

In the first sentence, few is a determiner; in the second, it’s a pronoun.

Can you explain why this is?

Think about what few does in these two sentences.

In the first sentence, few adds a quantity to the noun photos. It tells us how many photos you have. This makes it a determiner.

In the second sentence, few replaces a noun. You don’t know which noun it replaces, but in context, you would understand what the person meant.

Maybe it was ‘a few biscuits’, or ‘a few pieces of paper.’

We don’t know! But, you do know that few replaces a noun, which makes it a pronoun.

Another example is the sentence we saw before:

Prepositions go with nouns, and connect nouns to other words in the sentence. In here doesn’t go with a noun, so it can’t be a preposition.

Learn more with this Oxford Online English lesson on adverbs – to, in, at .

In here means ‘at home’, and it adds information to the verb stay. What kind of words add information to verbs?

Adverbs! So, in is an adverb.

Wait a minute, did we ever finish explaining what parts of speech are in this sentence?

You’re right! We didn’t. Let’s do it now. You need to say what parts of speech the words this evening are.

Can you do it?

Maybe you said that this is a determiner, and evening is a noun. That’s technically correct, but it’s not the best answer.

The best answer is that this evening is an adverb.

How do you explain that?

4. Compound Parts of Speech in English

Until now, you’ve seen single words, and how single words can be nouns, verbs, etc.

However, when you’re thinking about parts of speech, you can’t just think about single words. Phrases can also be nouns, verbs, adjectives, and so on.

Let’s do an example:

• Add a small spoonful of brown sugar, then turn the heat down and stir the mixture gently.

Think about the first part of this sentence: add a small spoonful of brown sugar.

What parts of speech do we have here?

Of course, you can go through it word by word. You can say, add is a verb, a is a determiner, small is an adjective and so on.

But, is that the most useful way of looking at it?

It makes more sense to see this as a verb— add —and a noun— a small spoonful of brown sugar.

The noun is made up of several parts of speech: determiners, adjectives, prepositions and nouns, but together they have one meaning. These words refer to one thing.

You can analyse a sentence in several different layers. So, you can see a small spoonful of brown sugar as six individual words, or one noun phrase.

You could also see it as three parts: a determiner— a small spoonful —a preposition— of —and a noun— brown sugar.

Confused? We understand! You want to know the answer. You want to know which way is ‘correct’.

There isn’t one ‘correct’ way to see this. There are different perspectives.

A better question is: which perspective makes more sense?

In this sentence, a small spoonful of brown sugar refers to one thing in the world. So it makes sense to think of it as one part of speech in the sentence.

What about the second part of the sentence? How would you analyse the parts of speech?

As you saw before, there isn’t one right answer, but here’s a suggestion.

The sentence contains a conjunction— then —and then two verb phrases linked with the conjunction and.

This makes sense because the sentence is telling you to do two things: turn the heat down and stir the mixture gently.

So, it makes sense to see turn the heat down as one part of speech, because it’s telling you do to one thing.

Let’s put these ideas together.

First, when you think about parts of speech, you can’t just memorise information. You have to look at each sentence individually, and think about what each word is doing.

Secondly, always think about what the sentence means in the real world. Sentences aren’t abstract things; they refer to real people, real things and real actions.

There is always more than one way to analyse the parts of speech in a sentence: choose the way that makes sense based on what the sentence is telling you about real life!

Let’s do a more challenging practice exercise so you can see these ideas in action.

5. More Challenging Practice with English Parts of Speech

Look at three sentences:

• Amazing! It’s way better than I ever thought it would be.
• She was an amazing clinician , who came up with many innovative ways to treat patients.
• I don’t believe it!

How would you analyse the parts of speech in these sentences? Think about the ideas we talked about in the last section. Does it make sense to break the sentences into individual words, or is it better to group words into phrases?

Pause the video and think about your ideas.

You can pause the video again to look at these in more detail.

Notice how the same word can be different parts of speech in different sentences. For example, amazing is an interjection in one sentence, and an adjective in another.

Notice also the different layers of analysis. For example, look at the phrase many innovative ways. You can see this as one noun phrase, or as a determiner plus a noun phrase, or as three individual parts: a determiner, an adjective and a noun.

Which is correct? They all are! Choose the perspective which makes more sense to you.

Thanks for watching!

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Parts of Speech

English grammar.

The parts of speech explain how a word is used in a sentence.

There are eight main parts of speech (also known as word classes): nouns, pronouns, adjectives, verbs, adverbs, prepositions, conjunctions and interjections .

Most parts of speech can be divided into sub-classes. Prepositions can be divided into prepositions of time, prepositions of place etc. Nouns can be divided into proper nouns, common nouns, concrete nouns etc.

It is important to know that a word can sometimes be in more than one part of speech. For example with the word increase .

Increase can be a verb e.g. Prices increased and increase can also be a noun e.g. There was an increase in the number of followers.

The eight main parts of speech in English are:

NOUN - (Naming word)

A noun is the name of a person, place, thing or idea.

Examples of nouns: Daniel, London, table, dog, teacher, pen, city, happiness, hope

Example sentences: Steve lives in Sydney . Mary uses pen and paper to write letters .

Learn more about the different types of nouns .

PRONOUN - (Replaces a Noun)

A pronoun is used in place of a noun or noun phrase to avoid repetition.

Examples of pronouns: I, you, we, they, he, she, it, me, us, them, him, her, this, those

Example sentences: Mary is tired. She wants to sleep. I want her to dance with me .

ADJECTIVE - (Describing word)

An adjective describes, modifies or gives more information about a noun or pronoun.

Examples: big, happy, green, young, fun, crazy, three

Example sentences: The little girl had a pink hat.

VERB - (Action Word)

A verb shows an action or state of being. A verb shows what someone or something is doing.

Examples: go, speak, run, eat, play, live, walk, have, like, are, is

Example sentences: I like Woodward English. I study their charts and play their games.

ADVERB - (Describes a verb)

An adverb describes/modifies a verb, an adjective or another adverb. It tells how, where, when, how often or to what extent. Many adverbs end in -LY

Examples: slowly, quietly, very, always, never, too, well, tomorrow, here

Example sentences: I am usually busy. Yesterday , I ate my lunch quickly .

PREPOSITION - (Shows relationship)

A preposition shows the relationship of a noun or pronoun to another word. They can indicate time, place, or relationship.

Examples: at, on, in, from, with, near, between, about, under

Example sentences: I left my keys on the table for you.

CONJUNCTION - (Joining word)

A conjunction joins two words, ideas, phrases or clauses together in a sentence and shows how they are connected.

Examples: and, or, but, because, so, yet, unless, since, if.

Example sentences: I was hot and exhausted but I still finished the marathon.

INTERJECTION - (Expressive word)

An interjection is a word or phrase that expresses a strong feeling or emotion. It is a short exclamation.

Examples: Ouch! Wow! Great! Help! Oh! Hey! Hi!

Example sentences: Wow! I passed my English test. Great! – Ouch! That hurt.

Summary Chart

Sometimes teachers include Articles as a ninth part of speech so we have included it here. Note, an article is a type of adjective.

ARTICLE - (Defining word)

An article is used before a noun. These are divided into definite (the) and indefinite (a, an). Articles help define nouns.

Examples: a, an, the

Example sentences: I need a dictionary. The dictionary needs to be in English.

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See our grammar notes with more details about nouns , pronouns, adjectives, verbs, adverbs, prepositions, conjunctions and interjections (coming soon).

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• Joas Pambou
• Jul 24, 2024

Integrating Image-To-Text And Text-To-Speech Models (Part 1)

• 18 min read
• AI , Tools , Techniques
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Joas is a machine learning (ML) and artificial intelligence (AI) enthusiast passionate about using these technologies to solve real-world problems. He believes … More about Joas ↬

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Audio descriptions involve narrating contextual visual information in images or videos, improving user experiences, especially for those who rely on audio cues.

At the core of audio description technology are two crucial components: the description and the audio . The description involves understanding and interpreting the visual content of an image or video, which includes details such as actions, settings, expressions, and any other relevant visual information. Meanwhile, the audio component converts these descriptions into spoken words that are clear, coherent, and natural-sounding.

So, here’s something we can do: build an app that generates and announces audio descriptions . The app can integrate a pre-trained vision-language model to analyze image inputs, extract relevant information, and generate accurate descriptions. These descriptions are then converted into speech using text-to-speech technology, providing a seamless and engaging audio experience.

By the end of this tutorial, you will gain a solid grasp of the components that are used to build audio description tools. We’ll spend time discussing what VLM and TTS models are, as well as many examples of them and tooling for integrating them into your work.

When we finish, you will be ready to follow along with a second tutorial in which we level up and build a chatbot assistant that you can interact with to get more insights about your images or videos.

Vision-Language Models: An Introduction

VLMs are a form of artificial intelligence that can understand and learn from visuals and linguistic modalities.

They are trained on vast amounts of data that include images, videos, and text, allowing them to learn patterns and relationships between these modalities. In simple terms, a VLM can look at an image or video and generate a corresponding text description that accurately matches the visual content.

VLMs typically consist of three main components:

• An image model that extracts meaningful visual information,
• A text model that processes and understands natural language,
• A fusion mechanism that combines the representations learned by the image and text models, enabling cross-modal interactions.

Generally speaking, the image model — also known as the vision encoder — extracts visual features from input images and maps them to the language model’s input space, creating visual tokens. The text model then processes and understands natural language by generating text embeddings. Lastly, these visual and textual representations are combined through the fusion mechanism , allowing the model to integrate visual and textual information.

VLMs bring a new level of intelligence to applications by bridging visual and linguistic understanding. Here are some of the applications where VLMs shine:

• Image captions : VLMs can provide automatic descriptions that enrich user experiences, improve searchability, and even enhance visuals for vision impairments.
• Visual answers to questions : VLMs could be integrated into educational tools to help students learn more deeply by allowing them to ask questions about visuals they encounter in learning materials, such as complex diagrams and illustrations.
• Document analysis : VLMs can streamline document review processes, identifying critical information in contracts, reports, or patents much faster than reviewing them manually.
• Image search : VLMs could open up the ability to perform reverse image searches. For example, an e-commerce site might allow users to upload image files that are processed to identify similar products that are available for purchase.
• Content moderation : Social media platforms could benefit from VLMs by identifying and removing harmful or sensitive content automatically before publishing it.
• Robotics : In industrial settings, robots equipped with VLMs can perform quality control tasks by understanding visual cues and describing defects accurately.

This is merely an overview of what VLMs are and the pieces that come together to generate audio descriptions. To get a clearer idea of how VLMs work, let’s look at a few real-world examples that leverage VLM processes.

VLM Examples

Based on the use cases we covered alone, you can probably imagine that VLMs come in many forms, each with its unique strengths and applications. In this section, we will look at a few examples of VLMs that can be used for a variety of different purposes.

IDEFICS is an open-access model inspired by Deepmind’s Flamingo , designed to understand and generate text from images and text inputs. It’s similar to OpenAI’s GPT-4 model in its multimodal capabilities but is built entirely from publicly available data and models.

IDEFICS is trained on public data and models — like LLama V1 and Open Clip — and comes in two versions: the base and instructed versions, each available in 9 billion and 80 billion parameter sizes.

The model combines two pre-trained unimodal models (for vision and language) with newly added Transformer blocks that allow it to bridge the gap between understanding images and text. It’s trained on a mix of image-text pairs and multimodal web documents, enabling it to handle a wide range of visual and linguistic tasks. As a result, IDEFICS can answer questions about images, provide detailed descriptions of visual content, generate stories based on a series of images, and function as a pure language model when no visual input is provided.

PaliGemma is an advanced VLM that draws inspiration from PaLI-3 and leverages open-source components like the SigLIP vision model and the Gemma language model.

Designed to process both images and textual input, PaliGemma excels at generating descriptive text in multiple languages. Its capabilities extend to a variety of tasks, including image captioning, answering questions from visuals, reading text, detecting subjects in images, and segmenting objects displayed in images.

The core architecture of PaliGemma includes a Transformer decoder paired with a Vision Transformer image encoder that boasts an impressive 3 billion parameters. The text decoder is derived from Gemma-2B , while the image encoder is based on SigLIP-So400m/14 .

Through training methods similar to PaLI-3, PaliGemma achieves exceptional performance across numerous vision-language challenges.

PaliGemma is offered in two distinct sets:

• General Purpose Models (PaliGemma): These pre-trained models are designed for fine-tuning a wide array of tasks, making them ideal for practical applications.
• Research-Oriented Models (PaliGemma-FT): Fine-tuned on specific research datasets, these models are tailored for deep research on a range of topics.

Phi-3-Vision-128K-Instruct

The Phi-3-Vision-128K-Instruct model is a Microsoft-backed venture that combines text and vision capabilities. It’s built on a dataset of high-quality, reasoning-dense data from both text and visual sources. Part of the Phi-3 family, the model has a context length of 128K, making it suitable for a range of applications.

You might decide to use Phi-3-Vision-128K-Instruct in cases where your application has limited memory and computing power, thanks to its relatively lightweight that helps with latency. The model works best for generally understanding images, recognizing characters in text, and describing charts and tables.

Yi Vision Language (Yi-VL)

Yi-VL is an open-source AI model developed by 01-ai that can have multi-round conversations with images by reading text from images and translating it. This model is part of the Yi LLM series and has two versions: 6B and 34B .

What distinguishes Yi-VL from other models is its ability to carry a conversation , whereas other models are typically limited to a single text input. Plus, it’s bilingual making it more versatile in a variety of language contexts.

Finding And Evaluating VLMs

There are many, many VLMs and we only looked at a few of the most notable offerings. As you commence work on an application with image-to-text capabilities, you may find yourself wondering where to look for VLM options and how to compare them.

There are two resources in the Hugging Face community you might consider using to help you find and compare VLMs. I use these regularly and find them incredibly useful in my work.

Vision Arena

Vision Arena is a leaderboard that ranks VLMs based on anonymous user voting and reviews. But what makes it great is the fact that you can compare any two models side-by-side for yourself to find the best fit for your application.

And when you compare two models, you can contribute your own anonymous votes and reviews for others to lean on as well.

OpenVLM Leaderboard

OpenVLM is another leaderboard hosted on Hugging Face for getting technical specs on different models. What I like about this resource is the wealth of metrics for evaluating VLMs, including the speed and accuracy of a given VLM.

Further, OpenVLM lets you filter models by size, type of license, and other ranking criteria. I find it particularly useful for finding VLMs I might have overlooked or new ones I haven’t seen yet.

Text-To-Speech Technology

Earlier, I mentioned that the app we are about to build will use vision-language models to generate written descriptions of images, which are then read aloud. The technology that handles converting text to audio speech is known as text-to-speech synthesis or simply text-to-speech (TTS) .

TTS converts written text into synthesized speech that sounds natural. The goal is to take published content, like a blog post, and read it out loud in a realistic-sounding human voice.

So, how does TTS work? First, it breaks down text into the smallest units of sound, called phonemes , and this process allows the system to figure out proper word pronunciations. Next, AI enters the mix, including deep learning algorithms trained on hours of human speech data. This is how we get the app to mimic human speech patterns, tones, and rhythms — all the things that make for “natural” speech. The AI component is key as it elevates a voice from robotic to something with personality. Finally, the system combines the phoneme information with the AI-powered digital voice to render the fully expressive speech output.

The result is automatically generated speech that sounds fairly smooth and natural. Modern TTS systems are extremely advanced in that they can replicate different tones and voice inflections, work across languages, and understand context. This naturalness makes TTS ideal for humanizing interactions with technology , like having your device read text messages out loud to you, just like Apple’s Siri or Microsoft’s Cortana.

TTS Examples

Just as we took a moment to review existing vision language models, let’s pause to consider some of the more popular TTS resources that are available.

Straight from Bark’s model card in Hugging Face:

“Bark is a transformer-based text-to-audio model created by Suno . Bark can generate highly realistic, multilingual speech as well as other audio — including music, background noise, and simple sound effects. The model can also produce nonverbal communication, like laughing, sighing, and crying. To support the research community, we are providing access to pre-trained model checkpoints ready for inference.”

The non-verbal communication cues are particularly interesting and a distinguishing feature of Bark. Check out the various things Bark can do to communicate emotion, pulled directly from the model’s GitHub repo :

• [clears throat]

This could be cool or creepy, depending on how it’s used, but reflects the sophistication we’re working with. In addition to laughing and gasping, Bark is different in that it doesn’t work with phonemes like a typical TTS model :

“It is not a conventional TTS model but instead a fully generative text-to-audio model capable of deviating in unexpected ways from any given script. Different from previous approaches, the input text prompt is converted directly to audio without the intermediate use of phonemes. It can, therefore, generalize to arbitrary instructions beyond speech, such as music lyrics, sound effects, or other non-speech sounds.”

Coqui/XTTS-v2 can clone voices in different languages. All it needs for training is a short six-second clip of audio. This means the model can be used to translate audio snippets from one language into another while maintaining the same voice.

At the time of writing, Coqui currently supports 16 languages, including English, Spanish, French, German, Italian, Portuguese, Polish, Turkish, Russian, Dutch, Czech, Arabic, Chinese, Japanese, Hungarian, and Korean.

Parler-TTS excels at generating high-quality, natural-sounding speech in the style of a given speaker. In other words, it replicates a person’s voice . This is where many folks might draw an ethical line because techniques like this can be used to essentially imitate a real person, even without their consent, in a process known as “deepfake” and the consequences can range from benign impersonations to full-on phishing attacks .

But that’s not really the aim of Parler-TTS. Rather, it’s good in contexts that require personalized and natural-sounding speech generation, such as voice assistants and possibly even accessibility tooling to aid visual impairments by announcing content.

TTS Arena Leaderboard

Do you know how I shared the OpenVLM Leaderboard for finding and comparing vision language models? Well, there’s an equivalent leadership for TTS models as well over at the Hugging Face community called TTS Arena .

TTS models are ranked by the “naturalness” of their voices, with the most natural-sounding models ranked first. Developers like you and me vote and provide feedback that influences the rankings.

TTS API Providers

What we just looked at are TTS models that are baked into whatever app we’re making. However, some models are consumable via API, so it’s possible to get the benefits of a TTS model without the added bloat if a particular model is made available by an API provider.

Whether you decide to bundle TTS models in your app or integrate them via APIs is totally up to you. There is no right answer as far as saying one method is better than another — it’s more about the app’s requirements and whether the dependability of a baked-in model is worth the memory hit or vice-versa.

All that being said, I want to call out a handful of TTS API providers for you to keep in your back pocket.

ElevenLab s offers a TTS API that uses neural networks to make voices sound natural. Voices can be customized for different languages and accents, leading to realistic, engaging voices.

Try the model out for yourself on the ElevenLabs site . You can enter a block of text and choose from a wide variety of voices that read the submitted text aloud.

Colossyan’s text-to-speech API converts text into natural-sounding voice recordings in over 70 languages and accents. From there, the service allows you to match the audio to an avatar to produce something like a complete virtual presentation based on your voice — or someone else’s.

Once again, this is encroaching on deepfake territory, but it’s really interesting to think of Colossyan’s service as a virtual casting call for actors to perform off a script.

Murf.ai is yet another TTS API designed to generate voiceovers based on real human voices. The service provides a slew of premade voices you can use to generate audio for anything from explainer videos and audiobooks to course lectures and entire podcast episodes.

Amazon Polly

Amazon has its own TTS API called Polly . You can customize the voices using lexicons and Speech Synthesis Markup (SSML) tags for establishing speaking styles with affordances for adjusting things like pitch, speed, and volume.

The PlayHT TTS API generates speech in 142 languages. Type what you want it to say, pick a voice, and download the output as an MP3 or WAV file.

Demo: Building An Image-to-Audio Interface

So far, we have discussed the two primary components for generating audio from text: vision-language models and text-to-speech models . We’ve covered what they are, where they fit into the process of generating real-sounding speech, and various examples of each model.

Now, it’s time to apply those concepts to the app we are building in this tutorial (and will improve in a second tutorial). We will use a VLM so the app can glean meaning and context from images, a TTS model to generate speech that mimics a human voice, and then integrate our work into a user interface for submitting images that will lead to generated speech output.

I have decided to base our work on a VLM by Salesforce called BLIP , a TTS model from Kakao Enterprise called VITS , and Gradio as a framework for the design interface. I’ve covered Gradio extensively in other articles , but the gist is that it is a Python library for building web interfaces — only it offers built-in tools for working with machine learning models that make Gradio ideal for a tutorial like this.

You can use completely different models if you like. The whole point is less about the intricacies of a particular model than it is to demonstrate how the pieces generally come together .

Oh, and one more detail worth noting: I am working with the code for all of this in Google Collab . I’m using it because it’s hosted and ideal for demonstrations like this. But you can certainly work in a more traditional IDE, like VS Code.

Installing Libraries

First, we need to install the necessary libraries:

We can upgrade the transformers library to the latest version if we need to:

Not sure if you need to upgrade? Here’s how to check the current version:

OK, now we are ready to import the libraries:

These libraries will help us process images, use models on the Hugging Face hub, handle audio files, and build the UI.

Creating Pipelines

Since we will pull our models directly from Hugging Face’s model hub , we can tap into them using pipelines . This way, we’re working with an API for tasks that involve natural language processing and computer vision without carrying the load in the app itself.

We set up our pipeline like this:

This establishes a pipeline for us to access BLIP for converting images into textual descriptions. Again, you could establish a pipeline for any other model in the Hugging Face hub.

We’ll need a pipeline connected to our TTS model as well:

Now, we have a pipeline where we can pass our image text to be converted into natural-sounding speech.

Converting Text to Speech

What we need now is a function that handles the audio conversion. Your code will differ depending on the TTS model in use, but here is how I approached the conversion based on the VITS model:

That’s great, but we need to make sure there’s a bridge that connects the text that the app generates from an image to the speech conversion. We can write a function that uses BLIP to generate the text and then calls the generate_audio() function we just defined:

Building The User Interface

Our app would be pretty useless if there was no way to interact with it. This is where Gradio comes in. We will use it to create a form that accepts an image file as an input and then outputs the generated text for display as well as the corresponding file containing the speech.

The interface is quite plain and simple, but that’s OK since our work is purely for demonstration purposes. You can always add to this for your own needs. The important thing is that you now have a working application you can interact with.

At this point, you could run the app and try it in Google Collab. You also have the option to deploy your app, though you’ll need hosting for it. Hugging Face also has a feature called Spaces that you can use to deploy your work and run it without Google Collab. There’s even a guide you can use to set up your own Space.

Here’s the final app that you can try by uploading your own photo:

We covered a lot of ground in this tutorial! In addition to learning about VLMs and TTS models at a high level, we looked at different examples of them and then covered how to find and compare models.

But the rubber really met the road when we started work on our app. Together, we made a useful tool that generates text from an image file and then sends that text to a TTS model to convert it into speech that is announced out loud and downloadable as either an MP3 or WAV file.

But we’re not done just yet! What if we could glean even more detailed information from images and our app not only describes the images but can also carry on a conversation about them ?

Sounds exciting, right? This is exactly what we’ll do in the second part of this tutorial.

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Olympics opening ceremony recap: Highlights from Paris torch relay, flame lighting

Editor's note: Follow the latest Olympics live results, medal count and updates for Saturday, July 27.

With an ambitious and unique opening ceremony , the 2024 Paris Olympics got under way when thousands of Olympians, including Team USA athletes , cruised along the Seine River on Friday night.

The city’s iconic landmarks provided a stunning backdrop for the parade of nations. Athletes from around the world, including Team USA flag bearers LeBron James and Coco Gauff , floated on boats for the six-kilometer route that traveled east to west across Paris from the Pont d’Austerlitz to the Trocadero.

USA TODAY Sports brought you live updates from Paris, highlights and more throughout the opening ceremony. (Follow NBC's replay of the opening ceremony in prime time.)

Who lit the Olympic Cauldron?

The Olympic Cauldron was lit by Teddy Riner, a three-time Olympic champion in judo, and Marie-Jose Perec, a three-time Olympic champion in track and field.

Rafael Nadal, Serena Williams carried Olympic torch

In an Olympics opening ceremony surprise, Rafael Nadal carried the Olympic torch once it reached the Eiffel Tower. Nadal might as well have honorary French residency after winning a record 14 French Opens. He won four in a row from 2005-2008, five in a row from 2010-2014, another four in a row from 2017-2020 and his final one in 2022. He is 112-4 all-time at Roland Garros. A statue of him was erected outside the stadium in 2021. Nadal has 22 Grand Slams total. 

Nadal then passed the torch to fellow tennis legend Serena Williams. Three of her 23 Grand Slam titles came at the French Open. Carl Lewis, a four-time Olympic champion at the 1984 Games, and Romanian gymnast Nadia Comaneci, who scored the first perfect 10 in Olympic history at the 1976 Games, also were part of the torch’s final journey. — Nancy Armour

Boat of GOATs. 🐐🛳️ #ParisOlympics pic.twitter.com/8Plbfd0seX — NBC Olympics & Paralympics (@NBCOlympics) July 26, 2024

Amelie Mauresmo passed Olympic torch to Tony Parker

The tennis theme in the Olympic torch relay continued when Amelie Mauresmo, the only French player to be No. 1 in the Open era, took the torch after it arrived off the boat. Tony Parker, who paved the way for French players in the NBA and won four titles with the San Antonio Spurs, took the handoff from Mauresmo. Parker and Carter continued running with the torch after they passed it over to a trio of French athletes. — Nancy Armour

Celine Dion at opening ceremony dazzled

The legendary singer Celine Dion performed at the opening ceremony after the Olympic Cauldron was lit. She also sang at the 1996 Atlanta Olympics opening ceremony.

CELINE! 🥹 #ParisOlympics pic.twitter.com/87AqGnLJUi — NBC Olympics & Paralympics (@NBCOlympics) July 26, 2024

Eiffel Tower puts on light show at opening ceremony

Watch the iconic Paris landmark sparkle.

The #ParisOlympics are here‼️ 📺: @NBCOlympics & @peacock #OpeningCeremony pic.twitter.com/5IPiPHTFqZ — Team USA (@TeamUSA) July 26, 2024

Who sang 'Imagine' at the Olympics?

Pianist Sofianne Pamart and singer Juliette Armanet performed “Imagine,” the John Lennon and Yoko Ono song.

Team USA's LeBron James, Coco Gauff not slowed by rain

The rain wasn’t spoiling the party for LeBron James, Coco Gauff and the rest of the U.S. Olympic team.

“Representing the red, white and blue, there’s no better time,” James said during an interview with NBC’s Maria Taylor during the parade of nations. “We’re here for the USA and ready to go out and compete at a high level.”

The NBA superstar and the Grand Slam champion were selected as flagbearers by the rest of the U.S. team. Flagbearers held their country’s flags aloft as the team boats floated down the Seine while other athletes waved smaller flags. But Gauff and James also took time to pose for photos with others on the boat – including the captain – and take in the sights of Paris.

“Seeing a lot of water, first off,” Gauff said. “But also some amazing people, a lot of amazing athletes and we’re all excited to represent Team USA.”

Asked if the steady rain put a damper on their special moment, James said no.

“The rain can’t stop us,” he said. — Nancy Armour

Team USA cruising into the #ParisOlympics 🤩🇺🇸 pic.twitter.com/gQDaRBrqXT — NBC Olympics & Paralympics (@NBCOlympics) July 26, 2024

LeBron and Coco leading the way as Team USA cruises down the Seine. 🫡 📺 #ParisOlympics Opening Ceremony on NBC and Peacock pic.twitter.com/JUBuL2It10 — NBC Sports (@NBCSports) July 26, 2024

Axelle Saint-Cirel performs French national anthem on Grand Palais roof

On the roof of the Grand-Palais and wearing colors of the French flag, Axelle Saint-Cirel, the Choeur and the Maîtrise de Radio France performed the French national anthem, called The Marseillaise. It was composed in 1792 by Claude Joseph Rouget de Lisle, who was an officer for the French Engineers. It was declared the national anthem in 1795. As the national anthem was performed, the Republic Guard raised the flag at the Trocadéro. Composer Victor le Masne musically rearranged the national anthem for the opening ceremony. 

🇫🇷 La Marseillaise ! Vous l’attendiez, c’est Axelle Saint-Cirel qui l’interprète depuis le toit du Grand Palais. pic.twitter.com/Nvsx31VC0S — Info France 2 (@infofrance2) July 26, 2024

Steph Curry, A'ja Wilson at Olympics opening ceremony

Women's basketball forward  A'Ja Wilson  looks to have added an extra piece of fashion to her Team USA Ralph Lauren outfit — thanks to the help of Steph Curry. The Golden State Warriors guard — who is making his Olympic debut with USA Basketball in Paris — gifted Wilson Olympics-themed sunglasses for Friday's opening ceremony.

thx @StephenCurry30 for the shades 🙂 pic.twitter.com/f3MaJA9iPq — A'ja Wilson (@_ajawilson22) July 26, 2024

Which country will host the 2028 Olympics?

The 2028 Summer Olympics will be in Los Angeles. The city has hosted twice before: 1932 and 1984.

Noah Lyles, Sha'Carri Richardson show off nails at opening ceremony

Here's a look the nails of Noah Lyles, who is the fastest man in the world so far this year.

He’s an ICON. He’s a legend. He is the moment. 📺 #ParisOlympics Opening Ceremony on NBC and Peacock pic.twitter.com/8BzUdyEX03 — NBC Olympics & Paralympics (@NBCOlympics) July 26, 2024

And here are Sha'Carri Richardson's nails from the opening ceremony.

She is HER. 💅 #ParisOlympics @itsshacarri pic.twitter.com/sXXxIMPf4R — NBC Olympics & Paralympics (@NBCOlympics) July 26, 2024

What country has the most athletes in the Olympics?

There are 10,714 athletes from 206 different countries scheduled to take part in this year's Olympic Games. The United States  will have the largest national delegation at the Summer Games in Paris with 593 athletes. Host nation France is second with 573, followed by Australia (460), Germany (427), Japan (404), Italy (403), China (388), Spain (382), Great Britain (327) and Canada (318) rounding out the top 10.

Why was Australia after Zambia and Zimbabwe at opening ceremony? 

The sight of the Australian team coming after Zambia and Zimbabwe might have taken those who know their alphabet by surprise. But there was a reason for the Aussies being so far out of alphabetical order. Countries that are hosting upcoming Olympics come at the end of the Parade of Nations. Brisbane is hosting the 2032 Summer Games, so Australia was the third-to-last team. The United States was second-to-last, with the Olympics returning to Los Angeles in four years. And France, the host of these Paris Olympics, was the last country in the 85-boat flotilla. — Nancy Armour

Olympics opening ceremony order of countries

The order of the parade of nations is determined by the French spelling of their country names. Germany is Allemagne in French, for example, so it goes with the As, not the Gs. The only exceptions are the United States, which is Etats-Unis in French but goes second-to-last because it is hosting the next Summer Games, and France, because it’s the host country. 

Metal band at Paris Olympics: Who is Gojira?

The metal band Gojira , who performed at the Olympics opening ceremony, is made up of Joe Duplantier, Mario Duplantier, Christian Andreu and Jean-Michel La- badie. They performed at the Conciergerie, which was the residence of French kings in medieval times. It became a prison during the French revolution and Marie-Antoinette was one of its most famous prisoners. Gojira performed alongside singer Marina Viotti.

Aya Nakamura Olympics opening ceremony performance 

Aya Nakamura is one of France’s most famous pop stars, performing performed "Pookie, Djadja" and "For me formidable, La Bohéme" at the opening ceremony alongside 60 musicians from the Republican Guard and 36 choristers of the French Army. Nakamura mixes elements of R&B, Afropop and Parisian street slang, and her most famous song is “Djadja.” She’s been compared to Rihanna and Cardi B.

En même temps. pic.twitter.com/xDkT0Kdq6N — Emmanuel Macron (@EmmanuelMacron) July 26, 2024

Why Russia, Belarus are banned from 2024 Olympics

Once again, Russia is technically banned from appearing at the Olympic Games . Yet once again, Russian athletes will compete under a different name − a handful of them, at least.

At the 2024 Paris Olympics , which begin this week, 15 athletes from Russia − and 18 from neighboring Belarus − are slated to compete as "Individual Neutral Athletes," or AINs for short, according to the most recent statistics released by the International Olympic Committee on Saturday . The AIN classification means that Russian and Belarusian flags, national anthems and uniforms will be absent from the Paris Games. This punishment was levied by the International Olympic Committee following its invasion of Ukraine. — Tom Schad

How many athletes are on Team USA?

There are 593 American Olympians at the Paris Games. Meet Team USA .

Leading the stars and stripes 🇺🇸 📺: @NBCOlympics & @peacock #ParisOlympics | #OpeningCeremony pic.twitter.com/Yxcgph2rsj — Team USA (@TeamUSA) July 26, 2024

How many countries participate in the 2024 Olympics?

More than 200 countries are competing in the 2024 Olympics , from Afghanistan to Zimbabwe.

Minions at Olympics opening ceremony

Minions — of the "Despicable Me" franchise and its spinoff movie, "Minions" — made a digital appearance at the opening ceremony. In a video with the "unknown" athlete running with the Olympic torch, the Minions are seen acting out a scene in a submarine submerged in the Seine.

The Minions are trained and READY for the Olympic Games. 💪 @Minions 📺 #ParisOlympics Opening Ceremony on NBC and Peacock pic.twitter.com/7vhtm5yxcw — NBC Olympics & Paralympics (@NBCOlympics) July 26, 2024

Lady Gaga at Olympics opening ceremony gave stunning performance

Lady Gaga  returned to music at the 2024  Paris Olympics  during a performance at the opening ceremony and lit up the City of Lights. Alongside  a fleet of dancers , the Grammy favorite performed a French-inspired set alongside the Seine river with a tribute to Zizi Jeanmaire's presentation of  "Mon Truc En Plumes,"  translated to “My Thing with Feathers.” — Jay Stahl

Olympic opening ceremony performers

Lady Gaga, metal band Gojira and French pop star Aya Nakamura were among those who have performed at the opening ceremony.

APPLAUSE to Lady Gaga for SLAYing this look 🩷 pic.twitter.com/arTVjG79lO — On Her Turf (@OnHerTurf) July 26, 2024

Who made medals for the Paris Olympics? 

The Monnaie de Paris, which has been minting France’s coins since 864. The company also made the medals for the Athens Olympics in 1896, the first modern Olympic Games, and the two previous Summer Games in Paris, in 1900 and 1924. 

How many medals were made for the Paris Olympics? 

Why does greece go first in the olympics.

Greece goes first at the opening ceremony every Olympics because it is the birthplace of the Olympic Games. 

Bienvenue mesdames et messieurs 🤩 Welcome the delegations to this enchanted, playful and sparkling Paris. Lights up, the curtain is open and the show has begun. #Paris2024 #OpeningCeremony pic.twitter.com/rSZJdIg30f — The Olympic Games (@Olympics) July 26, 2024

Why is Peyton Manning wearing an arm band?

NBC opening ceremony co-host Peyton Manning sported an arm band on his right forearm during the opening ceremony broadcast, much like he did during his playing days as an NFL quarterback. He joked he was wearing it because he had notes on all 200-plus countries in the opening ceremomny.

Giannis Antetokounmpo on being Greece's flag bearer

“That is an honor,”  he said . “If I am the flag bearer, great. If I am not, OK. I am just happy that I have a good coaching staff and a good team, I am in the Olympics."

Η μεγαλύτερη τιμή 🇬🇷🇬🇷🧿 pic.twitter.com/xHAWs5SI8i — Giannis Antetokounmpo (@Giannis_An34) July 26, 2024

Who designed the Olympics flag?

Pierre de Coubertin, who is considered the founder of the modern Olympics, designed the rings in July 1913. The Olympics logo was first used on a flag in 1914. That original flag is now at the Olympic Museum in Lausanne. The IOC officially adopted the rings logo and flag in 1914.

Americans in Paris

Rachael Raskovich, Amanda Mason-Sekula and Kelly Holmes arrived at the opening ceremony wearing American flag themed hats, red white and blue glasses and sequin USA jackets with "Proud American" stitched on the back.

"Amazon," Raskovich said with a smile when asked about the gear.

The trio of friends met in law school and said they will spend the next week or so hopping around to events around the city. They have tickets to beach volleyball and equestrian, Raskovich said, among other sports. Their group was just one of the many clad in red, white and blue that lined the southern banks of the Seine River on Friday night. Doris Ng of Chicago was among the U.S. spectators who were still searching for a good spot from which to view the ceremony in the hour before it began.

"We thought we were going to be on time," she said. "I think everybody else beat us to the punch already."

Fortunately, she also has tickets to the closing ceremony, she said. — Tom Schad

Not every local was in a festive mood

One man saw my media credential and wanted to make sure — despite barely speaking English — that he was upset over a rumor Celine Dion had been paid 2 million Euros to perform one song at the opening ceremony. Another woman, an American who has lived in Paris for 15 years, said property taxes went up and yet Parisians were not given much access to events or even public spaces to watch the festivities despite the financial and social burden being put on them.

But even when the rain began falling, people did not scatter to look for shelter. Instead they powered through, trying to get a better look at the bleu, blanc and rouge streaks being left in the sky by an airplane flyover.

Restaurants, which don’t have televisions here, were generally not busy. If you were going out to eat Friday night, it’s because you didn’t care to watch the show live. But inside one of them in a residential area near the Eiffel Tower, you could hear the singing of La Marseillaise, the French National Anthem. For a few minutes, the din of conversation went completely silent. — Dan Wolken

Team USA opening ceremony outfit

Team USA’s opening ceremony outfit is a modern take on a tailored look. On top, a tailored single-breasted wool blazer with red and white tipping is worn over a striped oxford shirt. The bottom is a more casual tapered jean and classic suede buck shoe fit. 

Ralph Lauren works closely with Team USA and the goal, as always, is to “do something graphic and uniquely American,” chief brand and innovation officer David Lauren said. 

To account for the heat, the company constantly looks at different fabrics and layering systems to keep the athlete’s body temperature in check, Lauren said. All items in both the opening and closing ceremony outfits are manufactured in the United States. 

The USA Basketball delegation departs for #Paris2024 #OpeningCeremony pic.twitter.com/Hzdz7VtuYx — USA Basketball (@usabasketball) July 26, 2024

Coco Gauff opens up on being U.S. flag bearer, making Olympic debut

Coco Gauff is making her Olympic debut in Paris and she is one of two U.S. flag bearers . “(Competing) in the  Olympics  has always been up there with winning a Grand Slam, like top goals,” Gauff told USA TODAY Sports this summer.  Read our full feature on Gauff .

On the opening ceremony red carpet, Serena Williams was asked about Gauff being the flag bearer. "Isn't that great. I'm so excited to see her tonight. I'm just so happy for her," the tennis legend said.

"I don't know if it's fun or if I'm a little jealous!" 😅 Serena Williams on enjoying the #ParisOlympics despite no longer being a competitor. 📺 #ParisOlympics Opening Ceremony on NBC and Peacock pic.twitter.com/DLWoHJ1ppY — NBC Olympics & Paralympics (@NBCOlympics) July 26, 2024

USA flag bearers 2024

Basketball superstar LeBron James and tennis star Coco Gauff are the flag bearers for the Americans. Gauff is the first tennis player to serve in the role.

Our flag bearers are ready 🇺🇸 📺: @NBCOlympics & @peacock #ParisOlympics | #OpeningCeremony pic.twitter.com/xyJIz2w7Aa — Team USA (@TeamUSA) July 26, 2024

Why is Snoop Dogg at Olympics?

With his mind on the Olympics and the Olympics on his mind, Snoop Dogg is, indeed, back for the 2024 Paris Olympics . The rapper, who will carry the torch ahead of the opening ceremony , is primed for a bigger role three years after his reactions to the dressage competition with Kevin Hart went viral at the Tokyo Games.

Snoop will appear regularly on “Primetime in Paris,” serving as a “ special correspondent ” for NBC. During parts of the primetime show, Snoop Dogg will interact with Team USA athletes, their families, or explore Paris and share his experiences and insights with the night's audience. He's also carrying the Olympic torch .

Snoop Dogg is bringing the energy to the Opening Ceremony. 📺: #ParisOlympics Opening Ceremony on NBC and Peacock pic.twitter.com/W3bQHHcWoQ — NBC Olympics & Paralympics (@NBCOlympics) July 26, 2024

Paris Olympics closing ceremony date

The 2024 Summer Games will hold the closing ceremony on Aug. 11

How many times has Paris hosted the Olympics?

Paris has hosted the Summer Olympics three times: 1900, 1924 and 2024.

Are any U.S. athletes skipping the opening ceremony?

About 350 of Team USA’s 592 athletes will march – or rather, float – in today's opening ceremony, according to Nicole Deal, who oversees the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee’s security operations.

That means about 40% of the U.S. delegation will be absent, though that is not exactly unusual.

Many athletes and teams – especially those competing early in the Games – choose to pass on the opening ceremony because it often runs late into the night and requires them to spend several hours on their feet. U.S. gymnasts and swimmers, for example, regularly skip the ceremony to rest up for their competitions – which, in some cases, begin the next morning.

U.S. swimming star Katie Ledecky said earlier this week that she never planned on going to the Paris opening ceremony for this very reason. She swims the 400-meter freestyle Saturday morning. — Tom Schad

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