This is a place for you to learn, review and practice basic grammar with sentence builder games.
If you are new to English, is best to go through these lessons in order. But if you want to review a specific topic, select it here:
Present Simple – ‘to be’
Present Simple – normal verbs
Past Simple – ‘to be’
Past Simple – normal verbs
Future Simple
If you have any questions, ask me on Reddit!
Let’s learn some grammar vocabulary.
Sentence Structure
The structure of sentences, the order of the words we use in English is very rigid. This is good and bad. It’s bad because it’s easy to make errors. However, it’s also good because if we know the structure, it’s easy to speak correctly. Learn and follow the sentence structure, and you will sound natural and express yourself with confidence!
Do you know the difference between a noun, a verb and adjective? We need to know what these mean, so we can use them to talk about English. Let’s learn this now.
A noun is a person, animal, place, thing or idea. It is something or someone we can talk about.
Some examples of nouns are a cow, a book, and Colombia.
Think of 10 more English words that are nouns.
A verb is an action or a state. It is something that we do or feel.
Some examples are eat, walk, think and be.
An adjective is a word that tells us more information about a noun.
Some more examples of a adjectives are happy, red, and beautiful.
Think of 10 more adjectives that you know, or want to learn in English.
Do you understand the difference between nouns, verbs and adjectives? See if you understand. Try putting the words in the correct categories. Are they nouns, verbs or adjectives? Try the game here.
A pronoun is a noun that replaces another noun, so that we don’t have to repeat ourselves.
For example:
Is Juan happy? Yes, Juan he is happy.
Are Mary and Luciana in the restaurant? Yes, Mary and Lucian they are.
For now, we only need to know subject pronouns.
The subject pronouns are: I, you, he, she, it , we, and they.
We will learn about other types of pronouns later.
Make sentences with the pronouns.
Can you tell me 20 English words?
Can you put the words in the correct categories? here.
Are you ready to continue?
Conjugation
Conjugation is how we change verbs. We change the form verbs take to reflect the subject, or to indicate the tense, the time we are talking about.
For now, we are using the Present Tense.
Our first verb is the verb ‘to be’.
The verb to be is special in English. She is independent. She is strong and doesn’t need help to express herself.
Normal verbs, like eat, want, know and play are weak in English. They are strong enough to make an affirmative. As we know, the Simple affirmative structure is SUBJECT + VERB + COMP.
Present Simple – ‘to be’ Sentence Builder Games
Do you know how to conjugate the verb ‘to be’? Try it out here:
Take a moment to review the structure for the verb ‘to be’. Examine how we make affirmative (+), negative (-) and interrogative (?) sentences.
Are you ready to play?
Level 1 here -affirmative sentences
Do you understand how to make sentences? See if you can put the words in the correct order:
Great job! Now, let’s learn how to make negatives and questions!
Level 2 here -negative sentences
Level 3 here -interrogative sentences
If we ask a closed question, we get a closed answer. For example, if we ask ‘is it a book?’, the person will respond either ‘yes, it is’, or no, it is not’. Sometimes, we want more information. We can add a question word! Let’s review the structure:
Do you know about question words? If you do, then you are ready to continue!
Level 4 here -interrogative with question words
Level 5 here – affirmatives, negatives and interrogatives together
Now you can make any type of sentence with ‘to be’ in the Present Simple. Great job!
People will understand you, but you sound very formal. Do you know how to contract the pronouns and the verb ‘to be’ to sound more natural?
If you do, then you are ready to try the next level.
Level 6 here and here– Contractions with ‘to be’
Why do we learn about the verb ‘to be’ separately?
The verb ‘to be’ is special in English. It is both a normal verb and an auxiliary verb. You can think of it this way: The verb ‘to be’ is strong and independent and it doesn’t need any help. It is in a club of elite verbs. Some other members are ‘can’ and ‘will’. We will meet them later.
Normal verbs, like eat and watch aren’t like the verb to be. Normal verbs in English are weak.
They are strong enough to make affirmatives, but too weak to make negatives and questions without help. When there is no other auxiliary to help, do is there.
Where normal verbs need help is when they make negatives and questions. When normal verbs do this in English, they need help. The superhero of normal verbs, that comes in to make sentences with normal verbs in negatives and questions correct is called ‘to do’.
‘To do’ is also a normal, weak verb.
Why to you think the verb ‘to be’ is different from normal verbs? Because ‘to be’ doesn’t need ‘to do’.
Present Simple – Normal Verbs Sentence Builder Games
Look at the poster below. How is the verb to be different from normal verbs?
It’s time to learn some verbs in English:
Learn and practice 36 common verbs with flashcards here.
You can test yourself and practice these here.
Most verbs in English are weak. They can make affirmative sentences. But they need help to make negatives and interrogatives (questions). When they need an auxiliary (a helper), the auxiliary verb ‘do’ comes to the rescue. It takes responsibility for the 3rd person ‘s’H.
Do you know how to make affirmative sentences with normal verbs? If you do, then continue!
Look at the chart below to refresh your memory:
‘I’, ‘you’, ‘we’ and ‘they’ use DO.
‘he’, ‘she’ and ‘it’ use DOES.
Are your ready to continue?
Level 7 here -Present Simple affirmatives
Level 8 here -Present Simple negatives
Level 9 here -Present Simple interrogatives – What’s in the backpack?
Do you know about ‘question words’? They are, for example: who, what, where, when, how, how much, how many…
You can check your knowledge of question words here.
If you know these, then continue on to level 10!
Level 10 here -Present Simple interrogatives with question words
Level 11 here – affirmatives, negatives and interrogatives together
Present Simple mutiple choice quiz (affirmative, negative and interrogative) here
Present Simple – ‘to be’ and Normal Verbs Together
Level 12 here – Present Simple ‘to be’ and normal verbs together
Well done! At this point, you are able to speak in beautiful, clear, correct sentences.
Do you know how to make the contractions with ‘do not’ and ‘does not’?
Check here to check.
Was that easy? If it was, then you are ready to continue to the next level.
Level 13 here -Present Simple to be and normal verbs together with contractions
Level 14 – Can/can’t here
‘Be’, ‘do’ or ‘can’ – Silly Comparisons games here
Congratulations! You have got the basic structure for the Present Simple! Keep practicing! Expand your vocabulary. Do you know all of these verbs? Find out here.
Past Simple – ‘to be’ Sentence Builder Games
Here is the structure for the verb ‘to be’ in Past Simple. Compare this with how we make affirmative (+), negative (-) and interrogative (?) sentences in Present Simple. What is the same? What is different?
The structure is exactly the same. The difference is that we use ‘was’ and ‘were’ instead of ‘am’, ‘is’ and ‘are’.
Do you know when to use ‘was’ and when to use ‘were’? If you do, then continue to the next level!
Past Simple – ‘to be’ affirmative sentences here
Past Simple – ‘to be’ negative sentences here
Past Simple – ‘to be’ interrogative sentences here
I challenge you to make 10 affirmative, Present Simple sentences, and then convert them the Past Simple.
Past Simple – Normal Verbs
The Past Simple sentence structure is the same as the Present Simple for normal verbs too!
The affirmative is: SUBJECT+VERB+COMPLEMENT.
The structure is the same, but we need to know the Past form of the verbs.
There are two types of Past Simple verbs. There are regular verbs, which have ‘ed’ at the end, and then there are irregular verbs, which change into weird forms.
Some regular verbs are: need- needed, walk- walked, love- loved, cook- cooked. Easy right? Well, no. Because the ‘ed’ can be pronounced in three different ways. Do you know how to pronouns the ‘ed’? Check here.
Learn and practice the most common irregular verbs with flashcards here.
Practice the irregular verbs with a crossword puzzle here.
Once you know the Past forms of basic verbs, then you are ready to move to the next level.
Past Simple – affirmative sentences here
Practice irregular verbs with a fill in the blank story about a crazy camping dream here.
Do you remember how ‘do’ helped make negatives and interrogatives in the Present Simple? ‘Do’ does the same thing in the Past. The Past of ‘do’ is ‘did’. It’s easier in the Past, because we use ‘did’ for all subjects.
If you understand, then you are ready for the next level!
Past Simple – negative sentences here
Past Simple – interrogative sentences (open and closed) here
Remember how we contracted ‘do+not’ and ‘does+not’? We can do the same thing with ‘did+not’. If you know about this, you are ready to go to the next level!
‘Was’, ‘were’ or ‘did’? Can you add the correct word to ask these questions? Try it here.
‘Could’ is the Past form of ‘can’. To see the grammar, and practice using ‘can’ and ‘could’, click here.
Keep studying!
Present and Past Simple Together:
Interrogatives (open and closed) here – Margaret’s Vacation
Future Simple:
Future Simple with ‘will’ here (affirmatives, negatives and interrogatives)