A sentence is a group of words which has complete meaning. Want your kids to be good at English? Want to teach them the basics of English grammar? Want them to be good English speakers? It might be a thing to worry about. But do not worry.
Start with the basics of English grammar, i.e. nouns, verbs, adjectives, sentences and the types of sentences. After kids have learnt the basics of grammar, it becomes easier for them to form sentences. Once they have learnt the formation of sentences, they can form passages and essays. This will be easier once they have learnt the parts of speech. The formation of sentences has a lot of rules and a lot of exceptions, but almost all sentences have similar rules.
Formation of Sentences
A lot of people have this conception that if children have learnt how to form sentences, then they have learnt the English language. But, they should at first know what a sentence is. What are the parts of a sentence, and what does a sentence comprise.
A sentence is a group of words which has a complete meaning. A sentence comprises a subject and a predicate. The subject is the central part of a sentence, and the predicate is the explaining part of a sentence which talks about the subject. There are four types of sentences.
- Interrogative sentence
- Imperative sentence
- Declarative sentence
- Exclamatory sentence
To form these sentences, you will have to keep a few points in mind, like identifying which kind of sentence you wish to form and the subject and predicate of a sentence, etc.
Examples of sentences
- I am happy for you.
- What is your name?
- I hope I am not doing it wrong.
- Ah! Such a tiring day it was.
- Can you please get me some water?
At times, it might be difficult to decide the subject and predicate of a sentence, mostly in interrogative sentences. For example, if the sentence is, What is your name? Then the subject is “your name”. So keep in mind that a subject is what or whom the sentence is about. Check the below provided tips to form a sentence.
Group your words to form the right sentence
Before you can form a sentence, it is essential that you find the right words for your sentence. First, you have to understand what kind of sentence you want to form. For example, if you want to ask someone about nouns, you can ask them what is a noun. In order to form any kind of sentence, you will have to find the right words and then decide on the proper arrangement of the words.
The parts of speech are not always only words.
As you know, a sentence comprises a subject, a verb and an object. These parts cannot only be just one word but can be made up of a group of words. So to get it right, focus on the complete structure of the sentence.
Decide on the object of the sentence
The object of a sentence can be either a direct object or an indirect object. Sometimes, there are two objects in a sentence.
Direct: Sentence where the subject and object are directly connected.
Indirect: Sentence where the object has a weaker connection with the subject.
Examples
- I got some flowers for Mary.
In this sentence, flower is the direct object, and Mary is the indirect object, and the indirect object has a preposition with it.
- I got Mary some flowers.
In this sentence, the objects are placed differently, and when the direct object is used at the end, we do not need a preposition before it.
Compound sentences follow the same format and same structure
Compound sentences follow the same structure, but it must be done twice. Two sentences are connected with a conjunction.
Example
- I have cooked pasta, and my father has got wine.
This sentence follows subject + verb + object and subject + verb + object.
We hope that the above-mentioned tips will be helpful in forming English sentences, and it will be easier for you to form any kind of sentence.