E002 Parts of Speech

Welcome to English with Kimberley.

In this episode, I want to introduce you to the names we use to group words together in English.

For example, ‘The Australian flag’ has two types of words. These are adjectives with ‘the’ and ‘Australian’ and a noun with ‘flag’.

But first – here’s a little quiz.

If I kick a big ball. What word group does ‘big’ belong to?

Is it?

a) Adjective

b) Preposition

c) Noun

or d) Verb

Well!

It’s ‘a’ – Adjective.

Most people would say that there are eight parts of speech, which are

Adjectives
Nouns
Prepositions
Adverbs
Conjunctions
Verbs
Interjections (and)
Pronouns
But we won’t go into detail about them now. We’ll leave this for other podcasts.

Remember, we also use these words in writing too – so don’t get confused with the use of the word ‘speech’ in ‘parts of speech’.

All we need to know is they exist and if we know what word belongs to what part of speech we will be able to understand and use the English language better.

For example, a car mechanic can name all the parts of an engine. He can take the engine apart and put the parts into groups (for example, nuts, screws, and so on).

He can also put the engine back together again because he knows how all the parts fit back together.

Finally, he can tell you which part is broken because he knows what it looks like, what it is supposed to do and how it works.

So, you see, English is just like that! And if you know the ‘inner workings’ or ‘mechanics’ of English you will be able to understand and use it better.

So, to our final quiz – just for fun!

What is the phrase we use to group words together in English?

Is it…

a) Portions of dialogue

b) Amounts of speaking

c) Parts of speech

or d) Chunks of communication

Great – I think you’ve got it!

Yes! It’s c) Parts of speech

You can leave feedback about this podcast on iTunes.

You can also find a script of this podcast at www.goaustralia.biz

If you want some more information on ‘parts of speech’, just type the words ‘parts of speech’ in your search engine, surf and see what comes up.

Or visit the GoAustralia website and watch the video that I’ve posted.

I hope you have enjoyed this podcast and you’ll join me again.