Making sure subjects and verbs agree in English can be deceptively difficult. At first glance, the process appears relatively simple. However, like many aspects of modern English, exceptions and complications soon begin to crop up.   This subject-verb agreement guide will be split into two parts. The first part will cover singular subjects, compound subjects,…

Today we’re going to discuss count nouns and noncount nouns. Counting in English can be a difficult concept to master because some nouns can be used with numbers while others cannot. We refer to those nouns that can express a quantity as count nouns. Noncount nouns are those nouns which cannot be used with numbers.…

Let’s continue our lesson on English verb tenses. In part one we looked at simple and progressive tense verb forms. Now we’ll dive into the perfect and perfect progressive verb tenses.   Perfect Tenses   A perfect tense verb is formed by adding has/have/had to the past participle form of a verb. The perfect tense…

English has twelve basic verb tenses: simple present, simple past, simple future, present progressive, past progressive, future progressive, present perfect, past perfect, future perfect, present perfect progressive, past perfect progressive, and future perfect progressive. Verb tenses in English can be challenging because only the simple present and simple past forms are marked by the verb…

An appositive is a noun or noun phrase that modifies or explains another noun. The appositive comes immediately before or after the noun it modifies. Here are some examples. (The appositive appears in bold text.):   My friend Marie is studying psychology.   “Marie” explains who “my friend” is.   John’s father, a truck driver,…

Infinitives are verbals made from “to” plus the stem form of a verb. They can function as nouns, adverbs, and adjectives. Last time we looked at the basics of infinitives and infinitive phrases. This time we’ll find out what “actors” are and how to use them. We’ll also discuss the most common error made when…

Infinities are the third and final type of English verbals. Like gerunds and participles, the other types of verbals, infinites are made from verbs but function as other parts of speech. They inherently convey a sense of action or a state of being. Infinitives are the most versatile of all the verbal types. They can…

Verbals are words derived from verbs that function as other parts of speech. We’ve already discussed one type of verbal: gerunds. Whereas gerunds can take the place of nouns, participles can fulfill the role of adjectives. Just like adjectives, participles modify nouns and pronouns, but they also imply some sort of action or state of…

Parallelism is all about maintaining consistency among words, phrases, or clauses. Using parallel structure provides clarity and places equal emphasis on the ideas you’re putting forth. Today we’re going to look at how to maintain parallelism in three stages. First, we’ll explore parallelism using infinitive phrases and gerunds. Next, we’ll turn our attention to verb…

Gerunds are verbals made by adding “ing” to verbs. Verbals are words made from verbs that function as other parts of speech. Gerunds are derived from verbs but are used as nouns. Therefore they are nouns that inherently convey some sort of action.   Gerunds can fulfill all the same roles in a sentence that…