You might say, “Jennifer was supposed to be here at eight,” then follow it with “She’s always late; next time I’ll tell her to be here a half hour earlier.”

You might say the movie was funny, engaging, well-written, or suspenseful. When you’re describing the movie with these words, you’re using adjectives. An adjective can go right before the noun it’s describing (“I have a black dog”), but it doesn’t have to. Sometimes, adjectives are at the end of a sentence (“My dog is black”).

Those bolded words are verbs. Verbs are words that describe specific actions, like running, winning, and being amazing.

I entered the room quietly.

Quietly is describing how you entered (verb) the room.

A cheetah is always faster than a lion.

Always is describing how frequently a cheetah is faster (adjective) than a lion.

You might say, “I left my bike leaning against the garage.” In this sentence, against is the preposition because it tells us where you left your bike.

Here’s another example: “She put the pizza in the oven.” Without the preposition in, we don’t know where the pizza is.

“I like marinara sauce. I like alfredo sauce. I don’t like puttanesca sauce.” Each of these three sentences expresses a clear idea. There’s nothing wrong with listing your preferences like this, but it’s not the most efficient way to do it.

In this sentence, and and but are the two conjunctions that link your ideas together.

Articles come in two flavors: definite articles and indefinite articles. And similarly to the two types of nouns, the type of article you use depends on how specific you need to be about the thing you’re discussing.

Did you buy the car?

From the above sentence, we understand that the speaker is referring to a specific previously discussed car.

Now swap in an indefinite article:

Did you buy a car?