The Basic English Grammar

English is generally said to follow the SVO grammar. In simple terms, this means Subject-Verb-Object grammar. But what are subject, verb, and object in simple terms?

Let’s take an example:

John eats apples.

Here, John is the person who does the action of eating. The action (eating) falls on apple. That is, apple receives the action of eating. So we can easily say:

• • • John is the ACTOR
    • Eat is the ACTION
    • Apple is the RECEIVER

So, in simple words, when you speak or write in English, you have to

1. 1. 1. Start with the ACTOR, then
      2. Tell the ACTION the actor did, and
      3. Finally, say where the action fell – the RECEIVER of the action.

Sometimes there will not be any receiver of the action. FOR INSTANCE:

The balloon burst.

This is a grammatically complete and correct sentence. But there is no RECEIVER.

This is the basic grammar of English.

You will never make a grammatical error if you know and use this basic structure of English. All the others will follow. Of course, you will need to learn them, but they will be very simple after this.

We’ll look at the first bit, called the 1-S rule. Okay, this is my term. The grammar teacher will call it the subject-verb agreement. But don’t worry, my term makes it very simple to understand and remember the rule, as you will see in the next post.