Tim先生の One-Point Lesson #14

Hello everyone!

Today we will review word classes - something most learners of English already know a lot about. What is a 'word class'? It means a kind of word. The most well known word classes are Noun, Verb, Adjective, and Adverb.

In a previous lesson, I talked about how one word can often be both a verb and a noun, depending on how it is used. Today, I will give several examples of how one word can be changed into any of those four word classes. Sometimes the word changes slightly, for example by adding 'ly' to make it into an adverb, and sometimes the word stays the same, but is used differently. For example a word which is both a noun and a verb often does not need to change.

Lets look at the word 'anger'.

First of all, anger is one of those words which is both a noun and a verb without changing. So:

Anger (noun) : 'Anger is a powerful emotion.'
Anger (verb) : 'Try not to anger the dog.'

Going further, we can make an adjective with a small change. So we now have a word that can describe nouns:

Angry (adjective) : 'The dog is angry.', 'The angry dog barked at the mailman.'

And we can use 'ly' to make an adverb, which we can use to describe verbs:

Angrily (adverb) : 'The dog barked angrily.'

Another example:

Sad (adjective): 'The man is sad.'
Sadness (noun): 'There is too much sadness in the world.'
Sadden (verb): 'The tragedy saddens me.' (this has the same meaning as 'The tragedy makes me sad.')
Sadly (adverb): 'The man walked sadly away.'

Some words can't be made into all 4 forms. Think about the word 'happy':

'I am happy' (adjective)
'Happiness is the most important thing in the world.' (noun)
'He danced happily around the room.' (adverb)

But there is no verb form of 'happy'. Instead we need to say 'that makes me happy.'

One more example: The word 'fast' can be an adjective or an adverb, but not a noun or a verb:

'That is a fast car' (adjective)
'He can run fast' (adverb)

Remember: the same word can often be used in many different ways, and it is important to use the correct grammar depending on what class the word is. Try to think of more simple words that can be used in all 4 word classes!

See you next time,
-Tim


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