Essential English Grammar: Suffixes, Verbs, Reported Speech
English Grammar Essentials
Suffixes: Expanding Your Vocabulary
Understanding suffixes helps you form new words and recognize their grammatical function. Here are common suffixes for nouns and adjectives:
Suffixes for Nouns: Forming Verbs and Adjectives
- Verbs from Nouns:
- agree (from 'accord')
- invitation (from 'invite')
- conclusion (from 'conclude')
- driver (from 'drive')
- actor (from 'act')
- Adjectives from Nouns:
- personality (from 'personal')
- friendship (from 'friend')
- happiness (from 'happy')
- obedience (from 'obey')
- annoyance (from 'annoy')
Suffixes for Adjectives
Suffixes can also modify or create adjectives:
- Careful (from 'care')
- Careless (from 'care')
- Dangerous (from 'danger')
- National (from 'nation')
- Predictable (from 'predict')
- Reversible (from 'reverse')
- Attractive (from 'attract')
- Bored (past participle used as adjective, from 'bore')
- Boring (present participle used as adjective, from 'bore')
Common Verb-Preposition Combinations
Many verbs are followed by specific prepositions. Mastering these combinations is crucial for natural English:
- apply for (to request something, e.g., apply for a job)
- wait for (to await something or someone, e.g., wait for the bus)
- listen to (to pay attention to sound, e.g., listen to music)
- arrive at (for specific places, e.g., arrive at the airport)
- arrive in (for cities/countries, e.g., arrive in London)
- hear about (to learn news or information, e.g., hear about the accident)
- hear of (to know about the existence of something, e.g., hear of a new band)
- talk about (to discuss a topic, e.g., talk about your day)
- talk to / with (to converse with someone, e.g., talk to your friend)
- think about (to consider or ponder, e.g., think about your future)
- think of (to have an opinion or recall, e.g., think of an idea)
Mastering Reported Speech
Reported speech (or indirect speech) is used to convey what someone else said without quoting them directly. This often involves changes in tenses, pronouns, and time/place expressions.
Modal Verbs in Reported Speech
When reporting statements with modal verbs, they often change as follows:
| Direct Speech | Reported Speech |
| CAN "I can sleep." | COULD He said he could sleep. |
| MAY "I may sleep." | MIGHT He said he might sleep. |
| WILL "I will sleep." | WOULD He said he would sleep. |
| MUST "I must sleep." | HAD TO He said he had to sleep. |
Tense Changes in Reported Speech
The tense of the verb usually shifts back in time when reporting speech, especially if the reporting verb (e.g., 'said') is in the past tense:
| Direct Speech Tense | Reported Speech Tense |
| Present Simple (e.g., "I am happy." / "I sleep.") | Past Simple He said he was happy. He said he slept. |
| Present Continuous (e.g., "I am feeling happy." / "I am sleeping.") | Past Continuous He said he was feeling happy. He said he was sleeping. |
| Past Simple (e.g., "I visited." / "I slept.") | Past Perfect He said he had visited. He said he had slept. |
| Present Perfect (e.g., "I have been happy." / "I have slept.") | Past Perfect He said he had been happy. He said he had slept. |
| Present Perfect Continuous (e.g., "I have been feeling happy." / "I have been sleeping.") | Past Perfect Continuous He said he had been feeling happy. He said he had been sleeping. |
| Future Simple (e.g., "I will be happy." / "I will sleep.") | Conditional Simple He said he would be happy. He said he would sleep. |
| Future Perfect (e.g., "I will have been happy." / "I will have slept.") | Conditional Perfect Simple He said he would have been happy. He said he would have slept. |
Time and Place Adverb Changes in Reported Speech
Adverbs of time and place often change to reflect the shift in perspective from direct to reported speech:
| Direct Speech | Reported Speech |
| now | at that moment, then |
| tonight | that night |
| today | that day |
| last night | the night before |
| this morning | that morning |
| this week | that week |
| next week | the following week |
| next year | the following year |
| here | there |