ADJECTIVE

My name is Ganesh and in this lesson we're going to learn all about adjectives.

In this lesson I will tell you what is an adjective and what are the two main types of adjectives
and then we will focus on using adjectives correctly and how to avoid common mistakes that
students make with them.
We will look at three areas: ed and ing adjectives, comparatives and superlatives and the order of
adjectives - that is when you have more than one adjective in a sentence, which should you put
first second etc.
So we'll talk about avoiding errors in these three areas. Before we start just remember if you have
any questions at all you can ask me in the comments section below and I will talk to you there.
OK so first of all what is an adjective? Well that's easy - an adjective is a word that gives
information about a noun or pronoun. In grammar we say that an adjective modifies a noun or
pronoun modify here means to change the noun or pronoun by giving more information about it.

For example take a look at this sentence There are three small black wooden chairs in this room.
Focus on the noun chairs and can you tell me which adjectives modify - that is give more
information - about chairs?
The adjectives are three, small, black and wooden. These adjectives answer questions like How
many? What size? What color? What material? etc.
Now in this example the adjectives occur before the noun but they can also appear after the noun
or pronoun like in this example - The food was hot and delicious. Here the adjectives hot and
delicious appear after the noun food and notice that we use the linking verb be - past tense was -
to connect the noun and the adjectives.
OK now that you know what an adjective is let's talk about the two types of adjectives in English
There are two main types of adjectives in English - these are called determiners and descriptive
adjectives.
Or as I like to say less interesting and more interesting adjectives. I say that descriptive
adjectives are more interesting because these are what we commonly think of as adjectives -
words like beautiful, big, small, tall, short, blue, red etc. So what are determiners then? Well
determiners are a small group of grammar words that act as adjectives. Words like my, our, your,
his, her etc. are determiners When I say - That's my car, for example, the word my shows that I'm
not talking about any car - I'm talking about one particular car - my car - so the word my acts as
an adjective by giving information about the noun car.

In the same way the words this, that, these and those also act as adjectives. Also the question
words what, which and whose can be determiners. If I asked - Which team do you think will win
the next match? - the word which asks for information about team. Team is a noun so which is an
adjective.

Quantity words like numbers and quantity expressions such as a few, some and many are
determiners as well. And finally articles that is the words a, an and the are also considered
adjectives because if I said - A window is broken - it could be any window but if I said - The
window is broken - we both know which window I'm talking about so articles give us
information about nouns and so they're also adjectives. Now all determiners are adjectives but
we will discuss these in other lessons because each one of them is a big topic. In this lesson we're
going to focus on the really interesting adjectives that are descriptive adjectives and we will look
at how to avoid common errors with them.
ADVERB

Transcript: Hey there, in this lesson, I am going to teach you all about adverbs.

You will learn what is an adverb, what are the different types of adverbs and how to use adverbs
correctly.

We will focus on avoiding common mistakes in two areas comparative and superlative forms and
then the very important topic, putting adverbs in the correct position in a sentence.

So let’s start. Before we begin, as always, if you have any questions at all, just let me know in the
comments section below, and I will talk to you there. Alright, so to start, let me ask you a question
what is an adverb? Some people say adverbs are like adjectives – you know adjectives (words like
good, bad, beautiful, tall, short etc.) they give information about nouns.

So people say adverbs give information about verbs. Well, that’s only half-correct. Because adverbs
are very talented words they can give us information about verbs but they can also give us
information about adjectives, other adverbs and even about whole sentences.

Now adverbs are all around us – words like slowly, unfortunately, very, enough, tomorrow, however,
always and so on and so forth. I’m sure you use adverbs all the time. But why do we use them? Well
we use adverbs because they answer some important questions about our sentences questions like
when, where, how, how much, how often etc.

Take a look at these examples: in number one, ‘He ate the sandwich quickly’ - ‘quickly’ is the adverb
it gives information about the verb ‘ate’ how did he eat the sandwich? He ate it quickly. In number
two, how beautiful is Tami in that dress? She is really beautiful (it means very beautiful). So the
adverb ‘really’ modifies the adjective ‘beautiful’ that means it gives information about the adjective. In
number three, we have an adverb of place. Can you identify it? It’s the word ‘here’ which gives us
the answer to the question ‘where’. In number four, we have an adverb of time – which is it? It’s
‘yesterday’ and it tells us when. And in number five, can you identify the adverb? The adverb is the
word ‘sometimes’ which answers the question ‘How often’ – How often do I drink coffee? Every
morning? No, only sometimes.

So here you see all the different things that adverbs can do. And based on these functions (or the
different jobs that they do), adverbs are divided into five common types. Let’s talk about that. OK,
adverbs are usually classified as adverbs of manner, degree, place, time and frequency. Adverbs of
manner tell us how (that is, in what way an action happens). Adverbs of degreetell us how much
(very good, really strong and so on). Adverbs of placeand time tell us where and when. Adverbs of
frequency tell us how often (always, never, sometimes and etc.).

Now there are also many other types such as adverbs of opinion - ‘fortunately’, ‘personally’, ‘sadly’
etc. these help us to express our point of view, and there are also connecting or linking adverbs like
‘moreover’, ‘however’, ‘on the other hand’, ‘therefore’ etc. But the most important adverbs for us are
the five that we discussed.
OK, at this point, I want to give you an important tip about words that end with ‘ly’ When you say
adverb, people generally think of words like slowly, quickly, happily, sadly, quietly, loudly and so on.
So it’s easy to think that all adverbs end with ‘ly’. But this is not true.

In this chart, you can see many examples of adverbs that have this ending. Also, there are many
adjectives that end with ‘ly’ words like friendly (like She’s a friendly person) or lovely (what a lovely
bouquet – that’s a bunch of flowers) these are adjectives, not adverbs. So remember: many adverbs
don’t end with ‘ly’ and some words that end with ‘ly’ can be adjectives. So, now, before we go any
further, I want to give you a quick test and check if you can identify adverbs correctly.

CONJUNCTIONS
Transcript: Hi there, and welcome back to our parts of speech series.
In this lesson, you’re going to learn about conjunctions.
We’ll first discuss what a conjunction is, and then we’ll look at the four main types of
conjunctions, and how to avoid the most common mistake that people with them – that is, how to
punctuate conjunctions correctly in writing.

Alright, let’s begin. As always, if you have any questions, just let me know in the comments
section below and I will talk to you there. OK, so first, what is a conjunction? A conjunction is a
word that connects parts of a sentence – it can connect words or it can connect phrases or even
clauses. Look at these examples. In number one, “When you go to London, you must try fish and
chips.” Fish and chips is a popular food in the UK.

So here, the conjunction ‘and’ connects two words – fish and chips. In the next sentence, “My
cell phone is either on the table or in the drawer.” The conjunction is the combination of ‘either ..
or’ and it connects two phrases ‘on the table’ and ‘in the drawer’. And in number three, can you
find the conjunction? The conjunction is ‘but ’ and it connects two clauses (clauses are just like
sentences) – “Yazmin went to see her manager” is the first clause and the second clause is “he
wasn’t in his office.” So you see here that conjunctions can connect any two parts of a sentence.
Alright so now let’s talk about the different types of conjunctions in English. Conjunctions come
in four major types: coordinating conjunctions (these are the words and, or, but, so, yet, for and
nor), subordinating conjunctions (like because, after, although, if, until etc.), correlative
conjunctions (these are pairs of conjunctions such as either .. or, neither .. nor, not only .. but also
etc.) – so in each one, you see two words that always go together. And finally, conjunctive
adverbs.

These are words like as a result, however, in addition and therefore. They are adverbs but they
act like conjunctions (that is, they help to join parts of a sentence). Now don’t be scared by all
these names – the names are not important, what is important is knowing how to use the
conjunctions correctly. Of course, conjunctions are a huge topic and there are many grammar
rules relating to them.

So today, we will focus on avoiding the most common type of mistake with conjunctions, and
that is, punctuating them correctly in writing. We won’t be discussing correlative conjunctions
because there aren’t any special punctuation rules with them – but we will be discussing the
other three. So let’s start with coordinating conjunctions first.
Coordinating conjunctions are probably the most commonly used type of conjunction in English.
These are the words: and, or, but, so, yet, for and nor. Now, the words for and nor can be used as
conjunctions but they’re not used a lot (the word for is used much more as a preposition not a
conjunction). But the other five are very common. Alright, let’s talk about how to punctuate
them correctly.
On the screen, there are four sentences. You will notice that there are no commas in these. So in
all four sentences, I want you to put commas wherever necessary. Pause the video and think
about your answers, then play the video again and check.
OK, let’s look at the answers: in the first two sentences, did you put a comma anywhere?
Actually, you don’t need any commas in these two sentences. That is because when a
conjunction only connects two words or two phrases, we don’t use commas. In number one, the
conjunction is ‘and ’ and it connects the adjectives ‘beautiful’ and ‘spacious’. Only two items –
so no comma. In number two, the conjunction is ‘or’ and it connects two noun phrases: ‘a
library’ and ‘a restaurant’.
GANESH

My job is to help you speak and write excellent English. As an ESL teacher, I've taught English
to hundreds of students from around the world, alongside running teacher training workshops to
help teachers and language trainers deliver better lessons to their students. If you would like to
learn any of these things: conversation skills, grammar, vocabulary, presentation skills, email
writing, essay writing... ...then you're in the right place! See my Udemy courses below and you
can start learning these skills right now! MORE ABOUT ME What teaching experience do I
have? For the past five years, I have taught English as a Second Language (ESL) to students
from India, Japan, South Korea, Sri Lanka, France, Spain, Saudi Arabia and Sudan. During this
time, I have also worked with one of the biggest language schools in the world, and as part of
this job, I have trained at several multinational companies, helping their employees develop their
communication skills for work. What do I teach? I teach general English, business English,
English for exams, presentation skills, telephoning skills, email writing, and accent and
pronunciation. I am also a teacher trainer, focusing on helping novice teachers deliver quality
lessons to their students. Why do I teach? I teach because I am extremely passionate about
teaching, and have been for all my life. My #1 commitment is my students' success in whatever I
teach them and beyond. Although a professional ESL teacher, in the past I have also taught web
design, software development, and even martial arts! What other work experience do I have? I
began my career by working as a copywriter for local publications and websites. I then worked
as an office manager, web developer and online marketer, all while working part-time as an
English language trainer. I took the plunge into full-time ESL teaching in 2010 and haven't
looked back since. What are my qualifications? I graduated with a degree in Business
Administration. My primary teaching qualification is a CELTA (Certificate in English Language
Teaching to Adults) from the University of Cambridge. I also have a certificate in using
Information and Communication Technology (ICT) in the classroom from International House,
Barcelona.