Understanding Nouns and Pronouns

Types of nouns

Common noun A common noun is a noun that refers to people or things in general, e.g. boy, country, bridge, city, birth, day, happiness.

Proper noun A proper noun is a name that identifies a particular person, place, or thing, e.g. Steven, Africa, London, Monday. In written English, proper nouns begin with capital letters.

Concrete noun A concrete noun is a noun which refers to people and to things that exist physically and can be seen, touched, smelled, heard, or tasted. Examples include dog, building, coffee, tree, rain, beach, tune.

Abstract noun An abstract noun is a noun which refers to ideas, qualities, and conditions - things that cannot be seen or touched and things which have no physical reality, e.g. truth, danger, happiness, time, friendship, humour.

Collective nouns Collective nouns refer to groups of people or things, e.g. audience, family, government, team, jury. In American English, most collective nouns are treated as singular, with a singular verb: The whole family was at the table.

Count and mass nouns Nouns can be either countable or uncountable. Countable nouns (or count nouns) are those that refer to something that can be counted. Uncountable nouns (or mass nouns) do not typically refer to things that can be counted and so they do not regularly have a plural form.

Types of pronouns

Possessive mine, yours, his, hers, ours, theirs. The white car is mine

Reflexive myself, yourself, himself, herself, itself, oneself, ourselves, yourselves, themselves. He injured himself playing football

Reciprocal each other, one another. They really hate each other

Relative: that, which, who, whose, whom, where, when. The book that you gave me was really boring

Demonstrative this, that, these, those. This is a new car

Interrogative who, what, why, where, when, whatever. What did he say to you?

Indefinite anything, anybody, anyone, something, somebody, someone, nothing, nobody, none, no one. There's something in my shoe.

Present simple:

Positive sentences

Subject+ main verb+ object

He works in a hospital.

Negative sentences

Subject+ do not+ base form verb+ object

I do not eat vegetables

Question sentence:

Do+ subject+ base form verb+ object

Do you need some help?