Parts of Speech Table

This is a summary of the 8 parts of speech*. You can find more detail if you click on each part of
speech.

part of
function or "job" example words example sentences
speech

(to) be, have, do,

EnglishClub.com is a web site. I
Verb action or state like, work, sing, like EnglishClub.com.
can, must

pen, dog, work,

This is my dog. He lives in my
music, town,
Noun thing or person house. We live in London.
London, teacher,
Merapi is an active volcano.
John

a/an, the, 69, some,

Adjective describes a noun good, big, red, well, My dog is big. I like big dogs.
interesting

quickly, silently, My dog eats quickly. When he is

describes a verb,
Adverb well, badly, very, very hungry, he eats really
adjective or adverb
really quickly.

I, you, he, she,

Pronoun replaces a noun Tara is Indian. She is beautiful.
some

links a noun to
Preposition to, at, after, on, but We went to school on Monday.
another word

I like dogs and I like cats. I like

joins clauses or
Conjunction and, but, when cats and dogs. I like dogs but I
sentences or words
don't like cats.

short exclamation,
Ouch! That hurts! Hi! How are
Interjection sometimes inserted oh!, ouch!, hi!, well
you? Well, I don't know.
into a sentence

* Some grammar sources categorize English into 9 or 10 parts of speech. At EnglishClub.com,

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:

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

• Parts of Speech Examples

• Here are some sentences made with different English parts of speech:
verb noun verb noun verb verb

Stop! John works. John is working.

•

pronoun verb noun noun verb adjective noun

She loves animals. Animals like kind people.

•

noun verb noun adverb noun verb adjective noun

Tara speaks English well. Tara speaks good English.

•

pronoun verb preposition adjective 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. adj. noun verb prep. noun adverb

Well, she and 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 conjuction!

word part of speech example

noun My work is easy.
Work
verb I work in London.
conjunction John came but Mary didn't come.
But
preposition Everyone came but Mary.
adjective Are you well?
Well adverb She speaks well.
interjection Well! That's expensive!
noun We ate in the afternoon.
afternoon
noun acting as adjective We had afternoon tea.
Light-------Turn the light off.

Light-----The lamp lights the room.

Parts of Speech Quiz

I bought a beautiful dress at the mall.
1

What did she ask you to do?

2

I left my shoes under the kitchen table.

3
 If we finish our work quickly we can go to the movies.
4

On Saturdays I work from nine to five.

5

I want to go to a university in the United States.

6

I'm sure I have met your girlfriend before.

7

Well, I don't think I will be here to answer the phone.

8

Andy knocked on the door but nobody answered.

9

10 After lunch let's go out for a coffee.