The most important rules of the English language. Basic rules of English grammar

Hello friends. Grammar English language, equipped numerous examples, helping to better master it. All grammatical rules are stated very in clear language. Both beginners and intermediate learners of English will find a lot for themselves here. useful information. English grammar will become much easier for you.

English grammar. Grammar reference

Verbs and tenses

And also:

You need to know these rules!

So, dear readers, now you will get acquainted with the basic rules of English from different sections of the language. They concern grammar, speech, syntax and much more.

Rule #1

After modal verbs particle to not used. We say:

Imust learn Englishmodalverbs. - I have to learn English modal verbs.
You should listen to your parents. -You should listen to your parents.
May I take yournotebooktillSunday? - Can I borrow your laptop until Sunday?

Rule No. 2

You cannot use the definite/indefinite article with a pronoun:

I love my mother. - II loveminemom.
Where is your friend now? - WhereNowyourFriend?
Yesterday I met Tom and his wife. - Yesterday I met Tom and his wife

Rule No. 3

Adverbs of the English language (for the question “how?”) are formed according to the scheme: adjective + ending ly:

Perfect - perfect ly- excellent, wonderful, wonderful
Quick-quick ly- quickly, nimbly
Rapid - rapid ly- fast
Quiet - quiet ly- quiet
Nice - nice ly- cute
Easy - easy ly- easily
Beautiful - beautiful ly- Beautiful

Rule No. 4

Use PresentSimple, after unions if,assoonasbeforewhen,till,until,after,incase in sentences of time and conditions relating to the future:

When I finish school, I will go to my grandparents in the countryside. - WhenII'll finishschool, II'll goTominegrandfatherAndgrandmaVvillage.
After you study your family tree, you will find out where you descend from. - AfterTogo, HowYouyou will studygenealogicaltreeyoursfamilies, Youyou will find, fromwhomYouhappening.
Your elder brother will certainly help you if you ask- YoursseniorBrotherNecessarilywill helpyou, IfYouhisask.

Rule No. 5

The word order in an English sentence is:

Subject + predicate + direct object + indirect object + adverbial

Subject + predicate + direct object + indirect object + adverbal modifier

Isentyoualetterlastweek. - I sent you a letter last week.
I saw Mike in the club. - IsawMikeVclub.
It was sunny yesterday. - Yesterdaywassunny.

In a Russian sentence, liberties are allowed, and there is no specific word order in it, everything depends on the emotion embedded in it. In an English sentence, everything is clear and strict.

Rule No. 6

Phrasal verbs (verb + preposition) of the English language have their own separate meaning and their own translation. For example:

To look- look; to look for- search

To put- put, put; to put on- put on

Rule No. 7

The most general rule for the definite and indefinite articles in the English language: the indefinite article is placed where nothing is known about the subject; The definite article is used where something is known about the subject.

I see a The girl walking down the street is very beautiful. - II seegirl. The girl walking down the street is very beautiful.

Rule No. 8

End — ed characteristic of past times only regular verbs. U irregular verbs its own form for each past tense. For example:

Look-looked BUT! Bring-brought -brought

Rule No. 9

There are 4 types of questions in English:

We go to the theater every Saturday. - Welet's goVtheatereverySaturday.

General(general): Do we go to the theater every Saturday? -Welet's goVtheatereverySaturday?
Special(special): Where do we go every Saturday? -WhereWelet's goeverySaturday?
Alternative(alternative): Do we go to the theater every Saturday or every Sunday? -Welet's goVtheatereverySaturdayoreachSunday?
Disjunctive(separating): We go to the theater every Saturday, don’t we? -Welet's goVtheatereverySaturday, NotSowhether?

Rule No. 10

To make an impersonal sentence, you need a pronoun It:

It is cold today. - TodayCold.
It is morning. - Morning.
It is difficult to translate this text. - Thistextdifficulttranslate.

Rule № 11

After alliances asif,asthough(as if, as if, as if, as if) in the conditional mood, verb tobe in 3rd person singular takes shape were:

She speaks so proudlyas if she wasn't guilty. “She speaks so proudly, as if she’s not guilty.”
Tom looks as though he were rich. - VolumelooksSoas ifHerich.

Rule No. 12

Conditional incentive sentences in the 1st and 3rd person are formed using the word Let's:

Let's I have a look at these pictures. - Let me look at these photographs.
Let's him sleep, he is tired. - Giveto himsleep, Hetired.

Rule No. 13

Everyone knows what the word is many is used with countable nouns, and the word much- with uncountables. But, if suddenly you find it difficult, doubt, forgot the rule or don’t understand what noun is in front of you, feel free to use a combination of words alotof. It applies to both types of nouns.

Many birds - a lot of birds
Much sugar - a lot of sugar

Rule no.14

Many English words- polysemic, that is, they can have several meanings. It depends on the context and meaning of the sentence. To more accurately understand the translation, you should consult a dictionary and clarify in what context the word is used.

Toshoot- shoot on video; toshoot- fire
Country- country; country- village, village

Rule No. 15

Verb do can replace the main verb in a sentence. For example:

Kate doesn't like to clean her room, but I do. -KateNotlovestake awaymyroom, AII love.
Amanda likes to get presents, but I don't. - Amanda likes to receive gifts, but I don’t.
Steve often ignores his duties, but his sister doesn't. - Steveoftenneglectstheirresponsibilities, AhissisterNo.

So we get to the fifteenth rule. Of course, this is not all. Each section of the English language has its own characteristics, and, therefore, its own laws. We told you only about the most basic ones. We hope you find them useful in learning the language.

Basics of English in 20 minutes

Imagine that you need to start something completely new to you right now. For example, driving a car, baking pies for the first time, giving a newborn a bath. Where do you start? Options:

1. I’ll take it and do it, what’s the problem.
2. First, I’ll read on the Internet or in books how to do it.
3. Call a friend who is experienced in this matter.
4. Help from the audience (I’ll ask someone else).
5. Learn from a professional.
6. I won't do it.

The option you choose characterizes you very clearly. If we're talking about about English grammar, then depending on which way you chose above, the following is expected:

1. Bugaga (the teachers and English people who heard you speak in English are laughing).
2. Adding patience and time to this, you will learn all the rules on your own.
3. Add to this the patience of a friend and his time, under his guidance you will learn all the rules.
4. You won't learn anything, but you will listen to how others do it.
5. Add money to this and you will learn all the rules.
6. You will be able to ski, meet friends in a cafe, sleep, eat - in general, life is good.

As you can see, to understand English grammar, you need, in theory, only three things: a source of rules, time and patience. The first is offered to you in these articles, but you will have to deal with the other two components on your own.

Thus, we give you a fishing rod, and you will catch the fish yourself. What is the beauty of our fishing rod? The fact is that it is light, convenient and easy to use. We will not load you with scary grammar terms, torment you with long lists, flickering arrows, A4 diagrams and other tricks that scare some English teachers.

There is nothing particularly difficult about English grammar, unlike many others. European languages(not to mention Eastern and African). You can simply read these articles like a fiction book. Even if you master the minimum, at the finish line you will find that you master most of the rules that previously seemed overwhelming.

As an example, let's do something already in the introductory part. What does speech consist of? From phrases. What does the phrase consist of? From the proposals. What does the proposal consist of? Stop! Let's clarify: what does an ENGLISH sentence consist of? Subject and predicate. Usually this is a noun and a verb (just don’t say that you don’t remember these words): the dog is running, the passer-by is screaming, the dog is barking, the owner is yelling. True, a noun can be successfully replaced with a pronoun: she runs, you scream, she barks, I yell.

You have just listened to a news briefing lecture on parts of speech. What do you remember? At a minimum, the words “noun” and “verb” for you are already associated with grammar, and not with cooking or construction work. And for now we don’t need more. Are you ready to continue at the same pace?

Follow me (follow me).

Parts of speech:

1. Numerals(The Numeral)
1.1 Cardinal and ordinal numbers
2. Pronouns(The Pronoun)
2.1 Personal and possessive pronouns
2.2 Demonstrative and negative pronouns
2.3 Indefinite and reflexive pronouns

5. Adjective(The Adjective)
5.1 Degrees of comparison of adjectives

7. Noun(The Noun)
7.1 Noun in English. Classification of nouns

8. Verb(The Verb)
8.1 Verbs in English. General information about verbs
8.2 Regular and irregular English verbs
8.3 Semantic and auxiliary verbs
8.4 Modals and linking verbs

“I don’t want to speak intelligently. I want to speak like a lady,” these words belong to Eliza Doolittle, the heroine of Bernard Shaw’s famous play “Pygmalion.”

Eliza may not have wanted to learn to speak correctly, but without grammar she would not have been able to speak at all. We are now talking about grammar as a system of words and syntactic structures inherent in a particular language. Grammar in this sense is “our main asset,” emphasized Eliza’s mentor, Professor Henry Higgins.

But this is not the only definition of grammar. The systematic study and description of a language or group of languages is also grammar, descriptive grammar. Professor Higgins was mainly concerned with just one aspect of it - phonetics, or the study of speech sounds. Henry Higgins recorded the talk of the common people in his notebook- this is a very accurate image of what descriptive grammar is.

Yet for most, "speaking like a lady" means speaking correctly, speaking as prescribed, speaking in accordance with language norm. Bernard Shaw spoke about the importance of prescriptive grammar when he wrote in the preface to Pygmalion: “The English do not respect their native language and stubbornly refuse to teach their children to speak it.” It is about the need for a prescriptive approach that Rex Harrison, who played the role of Professor Higgins in the musical “My Fair Lady,” said: “And there are places where our language has already been reduced to nothing. It hasn’t been in use in America for God knows how long!”

Why do we need to learn English grammar?

Grammar is a tool that can be used to describe any language. Grammar gives names to the words and word groups that make up sentences. Already in early childhood we learn to compose sentences - the grammar of our native language is subject to everyone. Studying English at school, university, with a tutor or on the Internet, we are faced with the need to once again independently and consciously go through this path. And here we need to have an idea of the types of words and phrases and how they form sentences.

Literate people are more likely to succeed in relationships with the opposite sex
According to an online survey in which 1,700 people took part, 43% of users on dating sites consider a low level of literacy to be a significant disadvantage to attractiveness.
More than a third (35%) say literacy is sexy. The survey also showed that women are more demanding of their partner’s literacy than men (Michael Sebastian, “43 Percent of Singles Say Bad Grammar Is a Turnoff”).

Parts of speech in English grammar

Depending on their function in a sentence, words are assigned to one or another part of speech. There are 8 parts of speech in English. Just by learning their names, you certainly will not become an English grammar professor. But you will have a basic understanding of the English language and will be ready to start reading other articles on our site - and these articles will help you make significant progress in learning English grammar.

Remember: if a sentence consists of one word, only an interjection can act as that word.

Other parts of speech - nouns, pronouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, prepositions and conjunctions - appear in combinations. To understand which part of speech a word belongs to, we must look not only at the word itself, but also at its meaning, place and role in the sentence.

Let's consider three proposals:

Jim showed up for work two hours late. (Jim showed up at work two hours late).
Here work is what Jim came to work for.
He will not have to work overtime. (He will have to work overtime).
And here work is the action that Jim will carry out.
His work permit expires in March. (His work permit expires in March.)
Finally, here work denotes the attribute of the noun permit.

In the first sentence the word work acts as a noun, in the second as a verb, and in the third as an adjective.

We hope you are not confused yet? Let's see what functions the 8 parts of speech perform in English.

Part of speech	Main function
noun	names an animate object, place, or thing	pirate, Caribbean, ship (pirate, Caribbean, ship)
pronoun	replaces a noun	I, you, he, she, it, ours, them, who (I, you, he, she, it, our, their, who)
	expresses an action or state	sing, dance, believe, be (sing, dance, believe, be)
adjective	denotes a noun attribute	hot, lazy, funny (hot, lazy, funny)
	denotes the attribute of a verb, adjective or other adverb	softly, lazily, often (gently, lazily, often)
	shows the relationship between a noun (pronoun) and other words in a sentence	up, over, against, for (up, through, against, for)
	connects words, parts complex sentence And	and, but, or, yet (and, but, or, yet)
interjection	expresses emotions	ah, whoops, ouch (ah! oh!)

NB! Articles (the, a/an) were once considered a separate part of speech. Nowadays they are more often classified as defining words or determinants.

What do we use to build proposals?

TOP 18 grammatical terms with film examples

Brush up on your English grammar with memorable quotes from your favorite movies and show off your knowledge in an interview or exam! We have compiled a “dossier” on 18 of the most common grammatical terms with rather unusual examples:

1. Active voice - Active Voice

A form of a verb that denotes an action performed by the subject (that is, the main character of the sentence, expressed by the subject). In other words, we are talking about how someone does something, produces, accomplishes something, that is, acts actively.

This construction is the opposite of the passive (passive) voice (see below).

“We buy things we don"t need, with money we don"t have, to impress people we don"t like.”

We buy things we don't need with money we don't have to impress people we don't like.

It is important to learn how to build big from small: putting words in the correct form and combining them into phrases, arranging parts of a sentence so as to get a meaningful statement.

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Classmates

There are different opinions regarding the difficulty of English. There is a common belief that English (mainly in terms of grammar) is relatively simple. But many, having tried to “conquer this mountain,” begin to be inclined to believe that everything is not so simple.

In reality, English grammar is multi-layered and consists of several levels, and whether it is complex or not depends on the level you want to achieve.

For most, it is not a goal to know English in its entirety and at the highest level - we just want to understand in most situations what we hear and more or less competently express our thoughts. For these purposes, you don’t need to know ALL of the grammar - you need to understand it, and then everything will look a little simpler.

What is included in this “necessary minimum”? What should you not ignore? Traditionally, the first thing most people are interested in is what is the situation with tenses in English? Which in turn leads to the question...

How many tenses are there in English?

Amazingly, if you take 5 people who have studied English and ask them this question, most likely each will give a different number. One will answer - 12, another - 16, and someone will name a shocking 26 or even 32!

Which one is right?
Our answer may surprise you. In fact, it doesn't matter! The majority of native speakers themselves also do not know exactly how many tenses there are in English - they simply use them.

A common mistake English teachers make when presenting material is that they focus too much on covering as much grammar as possible and try to give students as much time as possible, going deeper and deeper.
And if those tenses with which they usually begin are quite simple and understandable, then the subsequent ones, for lack of analogues in Russian, cause difficulties even in understanding, not to mention use.

Gradually a person gets lost in this “chaos”. He gets the feeling that there are a huge number of times, and they are all equally important, you need to know them and be able to use them (and if you make a mistake, you will be shot). This creates despair and reluctance to continue studying. American teachers even came up with a name for this state of “lostness” – ‘English trauma’.

In fact, not all times are equally “useful,” especially at first. The most basic ones are used constantly. Others, on the contrary, are used much less frequently - their knowledge is not a necessity.

In order to communicate at the level of the average Englishman or American, you need to know 5 tenses. To understand 99% of what is said and written, you need to add three more “to the piggy bank”.

The first three basic English tenses you need to master are present, future and past in the ‘simple’ category.

Next are added: the present category ‘progressive’ (in the British version called ‘continuous’) - “continuous” and ‘Present Perfect’ - “perfect” (it refers to the past tense). These two tenses have no direct analogues in Russian, so they present a certain complexity.

No more tenses are needed at this stage; there is no need to “collect” them!

Make sure you know this!

If you have already studied English and think you have reached an intermediate level, then before moving on, check if you have a command of the following “basic” English tenses:

Present Simple(usually called 'Present Indefinite' in UK): I go there often. (I XI can't wait to go thereoften).

Future Simple(usually called 'Future Indefinite' in UK): I will go there tomorrow. (I I'll go thereTomorrow).

Past Simple(usually called 'Past Indefinite' in UK): I went there yesterday. (I went thereyesterday).

Present Progressive(in British version called ‘ Present Continuous’): I am reading a newspaper now. (IchitaI'm reading the newspaper now).

Present Perfect: I have heard about it. (I heardabout this. )

For everything else, make sure that at this stage you:

You know how to construct negatives and questions.
Understand all aspects and features of the verb ‘to be’.
Mastered all forms of personal pronouns (possessive, objective, etc.).
Do you own English design“presence” ‘there is’.
You understand (at least) the general logic of using articles.
Do you know how to correctly say “a lot”, “a little” and “a little” in English?
You speak basic modal verbs (can, may, should, must, would).
Know the comparative and superlative degrees of adjectives and adverbs.
Are you able to construct sentences taking into account “ English order words."

All this is the grammatical basis of English - something that belongs to the initial, basic level. If you don’t have this knowledge, it’s pointless to delve further into grammar.

Of course, we are all curious and small retreat from the "course" is possible. But don’t let yourself be “dragged” into the jungle - this is destructive when learning a language.

With a sequential approach, you follow the principle of priority - “from important to unimportant” and master only the language that you can use in practice. In addition, each subsequent topic will be simple and understandable for you, since it will be based on a reliable and logical foundation.

Initially, the course is designed for beginners from scratch, so we start from the very basics. Then the level rises very quickly, and by the second half quite “serious” things begin - we enter the territory of “advanced” English.

Thus, the course is useful for students of almost any level. Even for the most “advanced” - for those who know all the topics we cover, the course will be interesting from the point of view of practice and consolidation of knowledge and skills. Below is short plan main grammatical topics of the course.

Lessons from the first week (Week 1):

1. Simple future tense; constructing questions and negatives.

2. Simple present tense; detailed answers.

3. Indefinite article'a'; education plural.

4. Use of the infinitive; countable and uncountable nouns.

5. The verb ‘to be’ (to be) and its features; possessive case (ownership).

6. Conjugation of verbs in the 3rd person singular; definite article ‘the’.

7. Constructions like “I want...”; prohibition of double negatives in English.

Lesson-summarization of the first week: The system of pronouns in English (personal, objective, possessive, reflexive); English sentence structure (narration, question, negation); conjugation of the verb 'to be'; generalization of the topic of articles.

Lessons from the second week (Week 2):

8. Simple past tense; introduction to phrasal verbs; 'something' and 'anything'.

9. The verb to ‘be’ is in the past tense.

10. Irregular verbs in the simple past.

11. Introduction to modal verbs; development of the topic of phrasal verbs.

12. Comparative and superlative degrees of adjectives.

13. Negation through the particle ‘no’; stable constructions (idioms) in English.

14. Modal verbs ‘must’ and ‘should’.

Summary lesson 2 weeks: Simple past (formation and use); groups of irregular verbs; modal verbs; phrasal verbs; degrees of comparison of adjectives; numerals.

Lessons of the third week (Week 3):

15. Progressive tense in the present and past.

16. Conditional sentences; future from the past; 'going to...' construction.

17. Conditional mood (verb ‘would’); verbs of sensory perception.

18. Construction ‘there is’; past participles; modal verb 'could'.

19. Imperative mood; 'have to' construction; “pseudo-verbs” (to be + adjective).

21. Constructions like “I want you to...” (I want you to do).

Summary lesson 3 weeks: ‘Progressive tense’ in the present, past and future; verbs of sensory perception and their specificity; active and passive participles; the construction of the presence of ‘there is’ in the present, past and future; modal verb equivalents; conditional sentences; constructions ‘in order to’ and ‘so that’; verbs of suggestions and recommendations.

Lessons from Week 4:

22. Present perfect tense.

23. Conditional sentences of the second type.

24. Gerund.

25. Passive voice; 'used to' construction.

26. Meanings of the verb ‘to get’; some prepositions; phrasal verbs.

27. Passive voice (continued); construction “or... or” (whether .. or...)

28. Stable constructions “verb + nouns” (have + noun, take + noun).

Summary lesson 4 weeks: Passive voice; gerund; present perfect; the logic of “difficult” times.

29. The whole story (we apply everything).

30. Surprise!

The topics are not limited to the listed list - we give the grammar in context, explaining it as a particular construction appears.

So, now you know what you can achieve by completing the course to the end. This is not a lot, and a lot at the same time. For some it will seem quite simple (due to the fact that part of the material has already been learned), for others it will be long haul from the very beginning.

Language was created so that people can communicate and understand each other. In order for interaction to be most effective, the first native speakers had to agree on the rules of English, otherwise everyone would speak their own. Over time, the set of these rules grew larger, acquired additional nuances and exceptions, and then turned into thick English textbooks that today flood the shelves of bookstores and libraries. We will not delve into the jungle of studying British speech, so as not to list all the rules in the English language, but will focus on the 10 basic rules of the English language. Check it!

Word order in a sentence

Russian speech allows us to compose phrases in any order we like. The sentences “He bought a car”, “He bought a car”, “He bought a car” and other variations will sound equally organic and correct from a grammatical point of view. But the English are a pedantic people, so in their sentences, as in life, there is a strictly observed order:

Subject(who?) + predicate(what does it do?) + addition(with whom? over whom? etc.) + circumstance(when? where? how? etc.).

He bought a car. - He bought a car.

Minor members may be absent, but the presence of a subject and predicate is mandatory, therefore the existence of impersonal sentences in English is impossible. If in the Russian analogue the subject performing the action is absent, then in English it is replaced by the pronoun “ it».

It's cold outside. - It's cold outside.

Auxiliary verbs

It is very important to remember the need to use auxiliary verbs in negative and interrogative sentences. In Russian, we do not need any helpers other than the main predicate verb. But in classical English, the construction of questions and negations requires the indispensable presence of an helping verb.

Do you love music? - Do you like music?
I won't go to this party. - I won't (will not) go to the party.

Which one exactly? auxiliary verb should be used depends on the time, but that's a whole other story with 16 separate chapters.

Basic forms of English verbs be, have, do

There is a “holy trinity” of verbs in the English language - words that can express most actions. These are the verbs: " be"(to be, to appear, to be), " have"(to have) and " do" (do). Due to such frequent use, in the present tense they have their own special forms:

« Be" divided by am (for I), " is" (for he, she, it) and " are"(for we, you, they).
"Have" has a special form only for the third person singular (he, she, it) - “ has».
A " do", using general rule for "he", "she", "it" in the present tense, uses the ending " es» — « does».

Having remembered these basic rules about verbs and their forms, you can already express your thoughts and explain to a foreigner what you need from him.

Prohibition of double negatives

Famous game " I've never..." in English is called " I've never(done)...” As you can see, in the Russian language there is a double negative - the pronoun “ never" and negative particle " Not" In English we only see negative pronoun « never", and before the verb "done" the usual negative particle“not” does not exist and cannot exist. Why this happened and who is to blame for it is unknown to history, but we like the version that business residents of Foggy Albion simply do not like to repeat themselves. And we should remember that in English you cannot use double negatives.

Articles

We can talk about these mysterious guys for hours. What makes this conversation especially long is the fact that there are no articles in the Russian language. But we will not repeat the multi-volume material of textbooks, but will concentrate only on when articles are not needed:

When it comes before a noun possessive pronoun or a noun in the possessive case:

This is a dog. This is my dog. It isn't my sister's dog.- This is a dog. This is my dog. This is not my sister's dog.

When a cardinal number precedes a noun (answers the question “how much?”):

I have two sisters and one brother.- I have two sisters and one brother.

When a noun is preceded by the negation “no”:

I have no idea what to do.- I have no idea what to do.

When a noun is preceded by a demonstrative pronoun (this, these, that, those):

Give me that pencil, please.- Give me that pencil, please.

Plural

The basic rule for forming plurals is to add the ending " s» to the singular form:

a dog - dog s, a cat - cat s, an insect - insect s

If a noun ends in hissing sound or letter " O", then you should add the ending " es»:

bus - bus es, glass - glass es, bush - bush es, box-box es, branch - branch es, potato-potato es

When the word ends with " y", and in front of her stands consonant, « y" in the plural changes to " ies»:

ba by-bab ies, ci ty- cit ies, la dy- lad ies
But: b oh- boy s,t oh- toy s, pl ay- play s.

When the end of a word is " f" or " fe", when adding the ending " s» letter « f" changes to " v»:

lea f-lea v es, wi f e-wi v es

These are the main ones English rules formation of the plural form, but we should not forget about exceptions that go against the rules, for example:

child - children, man - men, mouse - mice etc.

Degrees of comparison

There are two ways to form degrees of comparison: using suffixes and using additional words. The choice of method is influenced by the number of syllables and the last letter in the word:

If the word has 1 syllable, then you should add a suffix:

cold - colder - the coldest, cool - cooler -the coolest, big- bigger -the biggest

If the word consists of two or more syllables, then we use an additional word:

beautiful - more beautiful - the most beautiful

When a word ends with " y", we again use the first method with endings, but in this case "y" changes to " ie».

funny - funny ier- the fun iest, sunny - sun ier- the sun iest

Don't forget the article " the" before superlative comparisons, as well doubling the last consonant letters in monosyllabic words with consonant/vowel/consonant alternation.

Gerund after the verb "like"

A gerund is a verb ending in " ing" If you need to express your preferences using the verb “like,” then it is preferable to use a gerund after it:

I like watch ing films.
Do you like jogg ing?
You don't like play ing chess, do you?

Past tense forms of verbs

The basic rule is that to express the past tense you should use second verb form. This is where the nuances begin, because the main verbs of the English language are divided into regular and irregular, and their methods of forming the second form differ. For correct verbs use the ending " ed", but everyone wrong the verb has its own three shapes that need to be remembered - there is no separate rule for irregular verbs. Fortunately, many of them are formed according to similar word-formation models, and modern teaching methods have funny rhymes aimed at quickly memorizing the forms of irregular verbs. Our online tutor will be happy to introduce you to them.

Many, much, a lot

English nouns, like Russian ones, are divided into two classes: countable and uncountable. Class influences the use of quantitative pronouns:

WITH countable should use " many».

I have many dresses.- I have a lot of dresses.

WITH uncountable, which are liquids, substances and substances that cannot be counted, we use “ much».

I don't drink much water.- I don't drink a lot of water.

If define classdifficult, then you can use “ a lot (of)", which goes equally well with both uncountable nouns, and with those that can be counted

He doesn't watch a lot of TV, but he reads a lot of books.- He doesn't watch TV a lot, but he reads a lot of books.

Small hint in defining the class of nouns the ending “ s» for countable nouns in the plural.

Conclusion

When learning English, you should remember that rules are meant to be broken. All the rules above are just the “skeleton” of British literary speech. Alive spoken language has a lot of nuances and exceptions, which can only be known by immersing yourself in the atmosphere of an English-speaking society. English songs and films, as well as live interlocutors, will help you do this!

Embark on an exciting journey through the sections of our website, and in just a few days the 10 most important rules English will become as natural as breathing. Breathe in English!

Big and friendly family EnglishDom