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What is a Part of Speech?

A part of speech is one of the nine types of English words: VERB, NOUN, ADJECTIVE, ADVERB, PRONOUN, PREPOSITION, DETERMINER, CONJUNCTION, INTERJECTION

There are thousands of words but they don't all have the same job. For example:

• some words express action
• other words express things
• other words join one word to another word

These are the "building blocks" of the language. Think of them like the parts of a house. When we want to build a house, we use concrete to make the foundations or base. We use bricks to make the walls. We use window frames to make the windows, and door frames to make the doorways. And we use cement to join them all together. Each part of the house has its own job.

And when we want to build a sentence, we use the different types of word.

Each type of word has its own job.

There are 9 basic types of word, and they are called "parts of speech".

The most important parts of speech are the BIG FOUR, and the verb is the king of these. Here they are, each with an example and its basic "job":

• verb (deliver - expresses action)
• noun (computer - expresses a thing)
• adjective (yellow - tells us more about a noun)
• adverb (quickly - tells us more about a verb)

The other parts of speech are mostly small words:

• pronoun (it - replaces a noun)
• preposition (on - links a noun to another word)
• determiner (the - limits a noun)
• conjunction (and - joins words)
• interjection (ouch! - expresses feeling)

• Parts of Speech Table
• Parts of Speech Examples
• Parts of Speech Quiz

Parts of Speech Table

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

part of speech	function or "job"	example words	example sentences
Verb	action or state	(to) be, have, do, like, work, sing, can, must	EnglishClub is a web site. I likeEnglishClub.
Noun	thing or person	pen, dog, work, music, town, London, teacher, John	This is my dog. He lives in my house. We live in London.
Adjective	describes a noun	good, big, red, well, interesting	My dogs are big. I like big dogs.
Determiner	limits or "determines" a noun	a/an, the, 2, some, many	I have two dogs and some rabbits.
Adverb	describes a verb, adjective or adverb	quickly, silently, well, badly, very, really	My dog eats quickly. When he is veryhungry, 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 dogs and I like cats. I like cats and dogs. I like dogs 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 traditionally categorize English into 8 parts of speech. Others say 10. At EnglishClub, we use the more recent categorization of 9 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 adjectives, instead of being a separate part of speech.

Parts of Speech Examples

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

verb
Stop!

noun	verb
John	works.

noun	verb	verb
John	is	working.

pronoun	verb	noun
She	loves	animals.

noun	verb	noun	adverb
Tara	speaks	English	well.

noun	verb	adjective	noun
Tara	speaks	good	English.

pronoun	verb	preposition	determiner	noun	adverb
She	ran	to	the	station	quickly.

pron.	verb	adj.	noun	conjunction	pron.	verb	pron.
She	likes	big	snakes	but	I	hate	them.

Here is a sentence that contains every part of speech:

interjection	pron.	conj.	det.	adj.	noun	verb	prep.	noun	adverb
Well,	she	and	my	young	John	walk	to	school	slowly.

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!

word	part of speech	example
work	noun	My work is easy.
	verb	I work in London.
but	conjunction	John came but Mary didn't come.
	preposition	Everyone came but Mary.
well	adjective	Are you well?
	adverb	She speaks well.
	interjection	Well! That's expensive!
afternoon	noun	We ate in the afternoon.
	noun acting as adjective	We had afternoon tea.