Collins Dictionaries - Collins Primary Grammar, Punctuation and Spelling

a happy child

a strange boy

a joyful occasion

what they look like:

a large tree

a spotty dress

a gorgeous beach

what they sound, smell, taste or feel like:

a noisy party

a stinky cheese

a delicious cake

a hard seat

what colour they are:

a yellow bag

dark hair

green leaves

where they come from:

our German relatives

my American friend

a northern accent

what something is made from:

chocolate cake

a wooden box

a velvet scarf

Comparative adjectives and superlative adjectives

When you want to make a comparison between people or things, you need to use comparative or superlative adjectives. In the examples below, taller is the comparative form of tall and tallest is the superlative.

Rory is tall.

Rory is taller than his brother.

Rory is the tallest boy in his class.

Comparative

The comparative shows that a person or thing has more of a certain quality than another person or thing. In this case it is the quality of being tall.

You make the comparative form of an adjective by adding the suffix ‑er at the end.

dull + ‑er = duller

green + ‑er = greener

clever + ‑er = cleverer

Not all comparatives are made like this, though. If the adjective is quite a long word, you use more instead.

beautiful → more beautiful

eccentric → more eccentric

interesting → more interesting

Superlative

The superlative shows that a person or thing has the most of a certain quality out of a group of people or things.

You make the superlative form of an adjective by adding the suffix ‑est at the end.

dull + ‑est = dullest

green + ‑est = greenest

clever + ‑est = cleverest

If the adjective is quite a long word, you use most to make the superlative.

beautiful → most beautiful

eccentric → most eccentric

interesting → most interesting

Good and bad

The adjectives good and bad don’t follow the normal rules for comparative and superlative forms.

There are spelling rules about adding suffixes, and you can see these on pages 81– 85.

Adverbs

An adverb is a word that tells you something about a verb. They describe the way in which something is done. Many adverbs end with the letters ‑ly.

Some adverbs tell you how:

Ella runs quickly.

The children sing loudly.

Some adverbs tell you where:

We live here.

The plane flew south.

Some adverbs tell you when:

She is going on holiday tomorrow.

Phone the police immediately.

Some adverbs tell you how much:

I really want to see that film.

He was completely exhausted.

Some adverbs tell you how often:

You never come out to play football.

My sister and I always argue about who sits in the front seat of the car.

Some adverbs go at the beginning of a sentence. These give a comment on the whole sentence:

Fortunately, it didn’t rain.

Sadly, Jackie can’t come on Friday.

Prepositions

A preposition is a word that is used before a noun or a pronoun to describe how things are related or connected to each other. For example, prepositions can tell you:

• where a person or thing is:

a cat in the garden

a book on the table

a sock under the bed

Other prepositions like this include:

• the movement of something or someone:

The train came into the station.

We pushed through the crowd.

Other prepositions like this include:

• they also show how things are related in time:

I haven’t seen my auntie since last week.

Conjunctions

A conjunction is a word that is used to join two words or two parts of a sentence together. There are two main types of conjunction.

Co-ordinating conjunctions

A co-ordinating conjunction joins two things that are as important as each other:

I love fish and chips.

It was dry so I walked home.

You can have a biscuit or a cake.

She has neither mother nor father.

It can also show a contrast between two things:

Joe is having a birthday party but he hasn’t invited me.

Subordinating conjunctions

A subordinating conjunction introduces a clause which is less important than the main part of the sentence:

The teacher was angry because the pupils would not pay attention.

Mark read his book while he waited for his mum to arrive.

I must tell you some exciting news before we get started.

Some dogs go a bit crazy when it’s windy.

Pronouns

A pronoun is a word that is used in place of a noun. You use a pronoun instead of repeating the name of a person, place or thing:

Rachel lives next door to me. Rachel is in my class.

> Rachel lives next door to me. She is in my class.

That is the book I am reading just now. The book is very funny.

> That is the book I am reading just now. It is very funny.

I like to sit in the garden. The garden is very sunny.

> I like to sit in the garden. It is very sunny.

Personal pronouns

You use a personal pronoun instead of the subject or object of a sentence:

She is good at maths.

Nobody likes him.

Possessive pronouns

You use a possessive pronoun to show that something belongs to a person or thing:

We had to move out when our house was flooded.

I think the blue jacket is mine.

The dog buried its bone in the garden.

Relative pronouns

You use a relative pronoun instead of a noun to join two different parts of a sentence. The relative pronouns are who, whom, whose, which and that. They introduce information about a noun in an earlier part of the sentence. This noun is known as the antecedent. You use who, whom and whose when the antecedent is a person, and which and that when it is not a person.

who: You use who when the antecedent is the subject of the second clause.

I have an aunt who lives in Australia.

whom: You use whom when the antecedent is the object of the second clause.

It was the same man whom we had seen earlier.

whose: You use whose to show that something belongs to the antecedent.

Scott has a brother whose name is Jamie.

which: You use which when the antecedent is not a person.

We took the road which leads to the sea.

that: You use that when the antecedent is not a person.

George brought the sandwiches that he had made the night before.

Determiners

A determiner is a word that you put in front of a noun to show more clearly what you are talking about. There are different kinds of determiners:

Articles

The word the is called the definite article.

the robot

the traffic

the footballers

The word a is called the indefinite article.

a caravan

a giraffe

a scooter

If the word after a begins with a vowel, you use an instead:

an animal

an umbrella

an orange pencil

Other determiners

Other types of determiners give different information about the noun:

• the distance between the speaker and the thing they are talking about:

• who owns the thing: