Grammar facts for kids

Grammar is all about how words work together in sentences. It's like the rulebook for a language! It helps us understand how words change and how they should be put in order so that everyone can understand what we mean.

You can think of grammar in a few ways:

• It's the study of how a language works. This is like doing research on a language.
• It's the set of rules that show how to use a language correctly. This is the kind of grammar you might learn from a textbook.
• It's the natural system of rules that people learn when they grow up speaking a language. This is how native speakers use their language without even thinking about it.

When we talk, we often use the natural grammar we learned. But when we write, we try to follow more formal grammar rules. So, speaking and writing a language can have slightly different styles.

How Languages Use Grammar

Every language has its own grammar rules. While many European languages have similar grammar, there are also big differences.

English doesn't change its word endings very much. For example, we add an 's' for plurals (like cats) or to show possession (like John's). For verbs, we mostly just add an 's' for "he/she/it" (like she loves). We also add endings to show when something happened, like walked (past) or walking (present).

Other languages, like French, Italian, and Spanish, use word endings a lot more to show meaning.

Word Order in Sentences

Another big difference between languages is word order. This is about where words are placed in a sentence.

For example, in English, we say "I like fast cars." But in Spanish, they might say Me gustan los coches rápidos. If you translated it word-for-word, it would be like saying "To me they please the cars fast." This is because Spanish usually puts adjectives after the noun they describe.

In German, verbs often come near the end of sentences. For example, "The cat has eaten the food" in German would be Die Katze hat die Nahrung gegessen, which is like saying "The cat has the food eaten." English usually puts the verb between the subject (who is doing the action) and the object (what the action is done to).

How Grammar Changes Over Time

Written grammar usually changes slowly. But spoken grammar can change much faster! Sentences that seem normal to us today might have sounded strange 100 years ago. However, many common phrases we use come from old texts like the Authorized King James Version of the Bible and plays by William Shakespeare.

Different groups of people also speak with slightly different grammar. These differences are called dialects. The dialect a person uses often depends on where they live.

For example, someone speaking standard American English might say, "I didn't do anything." But someone speaking African-American Vernacular English (AAVE) might say, "I didn't do nothing." These are called double negatives. They are common in spoken English but are usually avoided in formal writing.

Even though dialects use different words or word order, they still have their own grammar rules. When people talk about "proper English," they usually mean the grammar rules found in standard reference books for British or American English.

Parts of Speech

Grammar helps us study different types of words and how they fit together. These types of words are called "parts of speech." They include nouns, pronouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, prepositions, conjunctions, and interjections. Grammar also looks at how these words form phrases, clauses, and sentences.

Nouns

Nouns are words for "things." They can be objects you see every day, like table or chair.

• Proper nouns are names of specific people, places, or things. For example, James, Wednesday, and London are proper nouns.
• Nouns can also be abstract ideas or feelings, like suffering or happiness.

Verbs

Verbs are words that show actions or states of being.

• An action verb: "Ryan threw the ball."
• A state of being verb: "I am worried."

The basic form of a verb is called the infinitive. For example, the infinitive for existence is "to be." A famous line from Hamlet is: To be or not to be, that is the question.

Verbs change their form to show when something happened. These changes are called verb tenses.

Adjectives

Adjectives are words that describe nouns. They tell us more about a person, place, or thing.

For example, in "pretty bicycle," the word "pretty" describes the bicycle. It tells us what kind of bicycle it is. In "that's a tall building," the word "tall" describes the building.

Syntax

Syntax is a part of grammar that studies how the "parts of speech" fit together to form correct sentences. It's like the blueprint for building sentences. Sentences then fit together to create paragraphs.

Images for kids

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  This image shows how a sentence can be broken down into different parts, like a noun phrase (the subject) and a verb phrase (which includes the action and the object).

See also

In Spanish: Gramática para niños