The 8 Parts of Speech~

The eight basic parts of speech are simple. They are verbs, nouns, pronouns, adjectives, adverbs, prepositions, conjunctions, and interjections. All English words fit into one of these grammatical categories. Many English words function as more than one part of speech. 

Take the word fly for example. When you fly in a plane, it is a verb. When you swat a fly, it is a noun. And when you wear fly shades, it is a slang adjective. English can be confusing because words can mean more than one thing, but if you know your eight parts of speech, you will avoid confusion. This is a summary of the 8 parts of speech* that can help you understand better. I also provided quick note that you can download HERE as your quick reference whenever you need help in determining words' function in sentences.

Part of speech	Function	Example words	Example sentences
Verb	action or state	(to) be, have, do, like, work, sing, can, must	SOS Grammar is a blog. I like SOS Grammar.
Noun	thing or person	pen, dog, work, music, town, London, teacher, John	This is my cat. He lives in my house. We live in Malaysia.
Adjective	describes a noun	a/an, the, 69, some, good, big, red, well, interesting	My cat is cute. I like cute cats.
Adverb	describes a verb, adjective or adverb	quickly, silently, well, badly, very, really	My cat eats quickly. When he is very hungry, he eats really quickly.
Pronoun	replaces a noun	I, you, he, she, some	Tara is Indian. She is beautiful.
Preposition	links a noun to another word	to, at, after, on, but	We went to school on Monday.
Conjunction	joins clauses or sentences or words	and, but, when	I like cats and I like birds. I like cats and birds. I like birds but I don't like cats.
Interjection	short exclamation, sometimes inserted into a sentence	oh!, ouch!, hi!, well	Ouch! That hurts! Hi! How are you? Well, I don't know.

* Some grammar sources categorize English into 9 or 10 parts of speech. In Malaysian context, we use the traditional categorization of 8 parts of speech. Examples of other categorizations are:

• Verbs may be treated as two different parts of speech:
• Lexical Verbs (work, like, run)
• Auxiliary Verbs (be, have, must)
• Determiners may be treated as a separate part of speech, instead of being categorized under Adjectives