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
speec
h
Verb
(to) be, have, do, like,
EnglishClub.com is a web site. I like
action or state
work, sing, can, must
EnglishClub.com.

pen, dog, work, music,

Nou
This is my dog. He lives in my
thing or person
town, London, teacher,
house. We live in London.
n
John
Adje
a/an, the, 69, some,
describes
a
noun
good, big, red, well,
My dog is big. I like big dogs.
ctive
interesting

Adv
erb
Pron
oun

Prep
ositi
on
Conj
uncti
on
Inter
jecti
on

describes a verb,
adjective or adverb

quickly, silently, well,

badly, very, really

My dog eats quickly. When he is

very hungry, he eats really quickly.

replaces a noun

I, you, he, she, some

Tara is Indian. She is beautiful.

links a noun to another

word

to, at, after, on, but

We went to school on Monday.

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.

short exclamation,
Ouch! That hurts! Hi! How are you?
sometimes inserted into
oh!, ouch!, hi!, well
Well, I don't know.
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)
Determinersmay 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:
nou
n
John

verb
Stop!
prono
un

verb

noun

nou
n
Joh
n

verb
works.
nou
n

ve
r

ver
b

verb

is

working.

adject
ive

noun

She

loves

no
un
Ta
ra

ve
rb
spe
aks

prono
un

ve
rb
ra
n

She

nou
n
Engl
ish

animals.

Ani
mals
no
un

adverb

Ta
ra

well.

prepositi
on

adjecti
ve

to

the

nou
n
stati
on

ve
rb
sp
ea
ks

kind

people.

adject
ive

noun

good

English.

adve
rb
quick
ly.

a
nou conjuncti pr
ve pr
d
n
on
on. rb on.
j.
Sh lik bi sna
ha the
but
I
e
es g kes
te m.
Here is a sentence that contains every part of speech:
interjecti pr
co
no ve pr nou
adj.
on
on. nj.
un rb ep. n
w
an you Jo
sch
Well,
she
al to
d
ng
hn
ool
k
pr
on.

b
li
ke

ve
rb

adve
rb
slow
ly.

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.

Decide which parts of speech are the underlined words

You have to believe in yourself if you ever expect to be successful at something.

We left for the mountain just before six in the morning.

We first went to the store to buy a few things.
We had a breakfast at a caf near the rail station.
My friend wasn't strong enough to lift his heavy rucksack.
I helped him carry it.
The weather was very cold.
My friend said, "Oh! What a cold weather!"
We didn't spend the night there.
We got back home late at night but we didn't go to sleep immediately. We were very hungry.