Naming Words, Doing Words

Words have jobs

Every word in a sentence has a job to do. Some words name things. Some words tell us what is happening.

Read this sentence: Ama eats kenkey.

Ama names a girl. Kenkey names a food. Eats tells us what Ama is doing.

Words that name are called nouns. Words that tell us what is happening are called verbs.

In this book you will learn to spot nouns and verbs, change one thing into many things, and match nouns and verbs so your sentences sound right.

Let's start with naming words.

Naming words: nouns

A noun is a naming word. It names a person, a place, an animal or a thing.

• A person: teacher, mother, Kofi
• A place: school, market, Kumasi
• An animal: goat, hen, lizard
• A thing: ball, book, trotro

Look around you right now. Everything you can point to has a name. All of those names are nouns.

Try this: Point to five things in the room and say their names. You have just said five nouns!

People are nouns

The names of people are nouns. So are the words for what people do or who they are to us.

• girl, boy, man, woman
• teacher, nurse, driver, farmer, trader
• mother, father, sister, brother, grandmother

The woman in the picture is a trader. She sells vegetables at the market. Trader is a noun. Woman is a noun too.

Try this: Write down the nouns for three people in your family and three people at your school.

Places are nouns

The names of places are nouns.

• house, kitchen, classroom, church, mosque
• market, farm, beach, road, village
• Accra, Tamale, Cape Coast, Ghana

In the picture you can see the entrance to a famous market in Accra. Market is a noun. Accra is a noun. Entrance is a noun too!

Try this: Name three places you went to this week. Each one is a noun. Say a sentence about each place: I went to the ___.

Things are nouns

The names of things are nouns. Things can be big or small, old or new.

• cup, spoon, bowl, pot
• pencil, book, bag, chair
• kenkey, banku, rice, orange
• bicycle, phone, radio

Look at the picture. Can you name the things you see? Kenkey, fish, pepper, plate. Four nouns on one plate!

Try this: Empty your school bag. Say the noun for everything inside it. How many nouns did you find?

Animals are nouns

The names of animals are nouns too.

• goat, sheep, cow, dog, cat
• hen, cock, duck, bird
• lizard, snake, frog, fish
• ant, mosquito, butterfly

The animal in the picture is a goat. Goats are everywhere in Ghana! The word goat is a noun.

Try this: Make a list of every animal you can see or hear from your house. Hens? Goats? Lizards on the wall? Each one is a noun.

Try this: find the nouns

Read each sentence. Find the nouns. Remember: a noun names a person, a place, an animal or a thing.

1. The teacher opened the door.
2. A goat ate the cassava.
3. Kofi walked to the beach.
4. My mother cooked rice in a big pot.
5. The bus stopped at the market.

Sentence 1 has two nouns: teacher and door.

Now try the others. Some sentences have two nouns. Some have three! Write them in your exercise book.

Special names: proper nouns

Some nouns name one special person, place or thing. These are called proper nouns. They always start with a capital letter.

• Names of people: Ama, Kwame, Mr Mensah
• Names of places: Ghana, Accra, Lake Volta
• Days and months: Monday, Friday, March
• Special days: Christmas, Eid, Independence Day

Girl is an ordinary noun. Abena is a proper noun, because it names one special girl.

Try this: Write your own name, your town and today's day. Did you use capital letters?

Worked example: nouns in a sentence

Let us find all the nouns in this sentence together.

On Saturday, Kwame and his sister sold oranges at the market in Kumasi.

Step 1: Look for people. Kwame and sister. Two nouns.

Step 2: Look for places. Market and Kumasi. Two more.

Step 3: Look for things. Oranges. One more.

Step 4: Look for special names. Saturday is a day. It is a proper noun.

That is six nouns in one sentence! Notice Kwame, Kumasi and Saturday start with capital letters because they are proper nouns.

One or many

A noun can name one thing or more than one thing.

• One goat. Many goats.
• One book. Many books.
• One girl. Many girls.

When a noun names one thing, we say it is singular. When it names more than one, we say it is plural.

The word singular sounds like single: just one. The word plural sounds like plus: more.

Try this: Look at your hands. One hand is singular. Two hands are plural! Now say the singular and plural for foot. Careful, it is a tricky one. We will meet it soon.

Adding -s

For most nouns, we make the plural by adding -s to the end.

One	Many
cup	cups
pencil	pencils
trotro	trotros
mango	mangoes

Wait, mango became mangoes! Some words that end in -o add -es. We will learn more about -es on the next page.

Try this: Write the plural of these nouns: bag, chair, teacher, spoon, hen, road.

Kofi wrote: bags, chairs, teachers, spoons, hens, roads. Did you get the same?

Adding -es

If a noun ends in -s, -x, -ch or -sh, we add -es to make the plural. Say the word out loud. You will hear the extra sound.

One	Many
bus	buses
box	boxes
church	churches
dish	dishes
glass	glasses

Try saying "one bus, two buss". It does not sound right! That is why we need the -es. "Two bus-es." Now it sounds right.

Try this: Write the plural of bench, fox, brush, class.

Tricky plurals

Some nouns do not follow the rules. They change in a special way. You just have to learn them.

One	Many
child	children
man	men
woman	women
foot	feet
tooth	teeth
mouse	mice

And a few nouns do not change at all: one sheep, many sheep. One fish, many fish.

Try this: Fill the gaps. One child, three ___. One tooth, many ___. One man, two ___.

Try this: one into many

Change each sentence so that it is about more than one.

1. The goat is eating. → The ___ are eating.
2. The box is heavy. → The ___ are heavy.
3. The child is singing. → The ___ are singing.
4. The bus is late. → The ___ are late.
5. The mango is sweet. → The ___ are sweet.

Then try it the other way. Write the singular of churches, feet, hens, dishes, women.

Did you notice that is changed to are? We will talk about that soon.

Doing words: verbs

A verb is a doing word. It tells us what someone or something does.

• Ama runs.
• The boys play football.
• The goat eats grass.
• Grandmother sleeps.

In the picture, the children play, run and kick. Every one of those words is a verb.

A verb is the action in a sentence. If you can do it, it is probably a verb.

Try this: Stand up. Jump three times. Clap twice. Sit down. You just did four verbs!

Verbs you do with your body

Many verbs are things you do with your body. These are easy to spot because you can act them out.

• run, walk, jump, hop, skip
• clap, wave, point, push, pull
• eat, drink, chew, bite
• sweep, wash, cook, carry, dig

Kofi sweeps the compound. Abena carries water. Their father digs on the farm.

Try this: Choose a verb from the list. Act it out without speaking. Can your friend guess the verb?

Verbs you do quietly

Not every verb is loud or busy. Some verbs happen quietly, inside you or while you sit still.

• think, dream, wonder
• sleep, rest, wait
• listen, look, watch
• read, write, draw
• like, love, want

Ama reads her book. Kwame thinks about the answer. The baby sleeps.

These are still verbs. They tell us what someone is doing, even if it is a quiet thing.

Try this: Which quiet verbs are you doing right now? Reading? Thinking? Sitting?

Try this: act the verb

Play this game with a friend or your class.

One person reads a sentence. Everyone else acts out the verb.

1. The fisherman pulls the net.
2. The hen pecks the ground.
3. Grandfather yawns.
4. The market woman counts her money.
5. The frog hops into the pond.
6. The teacher writes on the board.

Now make your own. Think of a person or an animal, then think of something it does. Say the sentence and let your friends act it out.

Worked example: find the verb

Let us find the verb in this sentence.

The hungry dog chased the goat around the compound.

Step 1: Find the nouns. Dog, goat, compound. These are naming words, so they are not the verb.

Step 2: Ask: what is happening? What did the dog do? The dog chased.

Step 3: Check. Can you act out chased? Yes! Can you act out hungry? No, that describes the dog. So chased is the verb.

The verb is chased.

Tip: Find the nouns first. Then ask what the first noun is doing.

Every sentence needs both

A sentence needs a noun and a verb. Without them, it is not a sentence.

• Goat. Just a noun. Not a sentence.
• Jumps. Just a verb. Not a sentence.
• The goat jumps. A noun and a verb. A sentence!

The noun tells us who or what. The verb tells us what they do.

Try this: Put a noun and a verb together to make sentences. Use this list.

Nouns: baby, trotro, Abena, fish Verbs: cries, stops, swims, dances

The baby cries. The trotro stops. Now you finish the rest.

The noun does the verb

In a sentence, the noun that comes first usually does the action.

Kofi kicks the ball.

Who kicks? Kofi. Kofi is the noun doing the verb. The ball is also a noun, but it is not doing anything. It is being kicked!

The cat chases the mouse.

Who chases? The cat. The mouse is the one being chased.

Try this: In each sentence, say which noun is doing the verb.

1. The teacher rings the bell.
2. Ama waters the plants.
3. The rain wets the road.

One noun, add -s to the verb

Here is something strange but important. When the noun is one person or thing, the verb usually ends in -s.

• Ama eats kenkey.
• The goat sleeps under the tree.
• The trotro stops at the junction.
• My brother plays football.

One Ama, so eats. One goat, so sleeps.

Say it wrong and listen: Ama eat kenkey. It does not sound right. Ama eats kenkey. That's better.

Try this: Add -s to the verb. The baby (cry). Kofi (wash) the plates. The hen (lay) an egg.

Many nouns, no -s on the verb

When the noun is more than one, the verb does not end in -s.

• The girls eat kenkey.
• The goats sleep under the tree.
• The trotros stop at the junction.
• My brothers play football.

It is like a see-saw. If the noun has the -s (plural), the verb does not. If the noun has no -s (singular), the verb gets it.

• One girl eats. Many girls eat.

Try this: Change these to many. The dog barks. The bird sings. The child laughs.

Worked example: match them

Abena must choose the right verb: The boys (run / runs) to school.

Step 1: Find the noun doing the action. Boys.

Step 2: Is it one or many? Boys ends in -s. It is many.

Step 3: Many nouns take the verb without -s. So the answer is run.

The boys run to school.

Now a second one: The boy (run / runs) to school.

Boy is one. One noun takes the verb with -s. The boy runs to school.

The noun and the verb must agree. That is the rule.

Try this: fix the sentence

Each sentence has a mistake. The noun and verb do not agree. Fix it!

1. The goats eats the grass.
2. Kofi play with his friends.
3. The children sings in church.
4. The baby sleep all day.
5. My aunties sells cloth at the market.
6. The lizard climb the wall.

Kwame fixed the first one: The goats eat the grass. He took the -s off the verb because goats is many.

Write all six correct sentences in your exercise book.

Is and are

Is and are are special verbs. They do not show an action. They tell us what something is like or where it is.

• One thing: use is. The trotro is full.
• Many things: use are. The trotros are full.

More examples:

• The mango is ripe. The mangoes are ripe.
• My sister is at home. My sisters are at home.

Try this: Choose is or are. The goat ___ hungry. The children ___ happy. The road ___ wet.

Today and yesterday

Verbs can change to show when something happened.

Something happening now or every day: Ama walks to school.

Something that happened before: Yesterday, Ama walked to school.

For many verbs, we add -ed to show it already happened.

• play → played
• cook → cooked
• jump → jumped
• wash → washed

Some verbs change in a different way: eat → ate, run → ran, go → went. You will learn more of these in Basic 3.

Try this: Say what you did yesterday using three -ed verbs.

Same word, two jobs

Some words can be a noun or a verb. It depends on the job the word is doing in the sentence.

• Ama drinks water. (Water is a thing. Noun.)

• Ama waters the plants. (Waters is an action. Verb.)

• We watched the play. (A thing you watch. Noun.)

• We play outside. (An action. Verb.)

Look at the mango tree. Mango is a noun. Now: Kofi climbs the mango tree. Climbs is the verb.

Try this: Use fish as a noun in one sentence and as a verb in another.

Building a sentence

Let us build sentences step by step. Start with a noun. Add a verb. Then add more.

1. Noun: The hen
2. Add a verb: The hen pecks.
3. Add another noun: The hen pecks the corn.
4. Add a place: The hen pecks the corn in the yard.

Every time we add something, the sentence tells us more. But it always needs the noun and the verb in the middle of it all.

Try this: Build a sentence in four steps. Start with The fisherman. What does he do? What does he do it to? Where?

A story: Abena's morning

Read the story. Then find the nouns and verbs.

Abena wakes up early. She sweeps the compound and fetches water. Her mother cooks porridge. Abena eats quickly and picks up her bag. She walks to school with her friend Kofi. The teacher smiles at the door. The children sit down and open their books.

Nouns: Can you find at least ten? Start with Abena, compound, water...

Verbs: Can you find at least eight? Start with wakes, sweeps, fetches...

Which nouns are proper nouns? How do you know?

The noun and verb game

Here is a game for the whole class.

Make two piles of cards. On the first pile, write nouns: goat, teacher, trotro, baby, Kwame, rain. On the second pile, write verbs: jumps, sings, stops, cries, runs, falls.

Pick one card from each pile. Read the sentence you have made. The goat sings! The trotro cries!

Some sentences will be silly. That is fine. They are still sentences, because each has a noun and a verb.

Try this: Which silly sentence made you laugh the most? Draw a picture of it.

Mistakes to watch for

Forgetting capital letters on proper nouns. Write Ama and Ghana, not ama and ghana.

Adding -s to the wrong word. The goats eats is wrong. If the noun is plural, the verb has no -s. The goats eat.

Guessing tricky plurals. It is children, not childs. It is feet, not foots.

Mixing up is and are. One thing is. Many things are.

Leaving out the verb. The dog the ball. What did the dog do? Add a verb: The dog chased the ball.

Try this: Find three mistakes. the childs is playing with ball.

What we learned

Well done! Here is everything from this book.

• A noun names a person, place, animal or thing.
• Proper nouns name one special person or place and start with a capital letter.
• Singular means one. Plural means more than one.
• Most plurals add -s. Words ending in -s, -x, -ch, -sh add -es. Some are tricky: children, feet, men.
• A verb is a doing word.
• Every sentence needs a noun and a verb.
• One noun → verb with -s. Many nouns → verb without -s.
• One thing is. Many things are.

Keep hunting for nouns and verbs in every sentence you read!

Learn more

• BBC Bitesize: KS1 Grammar — short lessons and quizzes on nouns, verbs and sentences
• Simple English Wikipedia: Noun — a plain explanation of naming words with examples
• Simple English Wikipedia: Verb — a plain explanation of doing words
• Khan Academy: Grammar — free video lessons on parts of speech
• Starfall — reading games for young learners

Watch more

Think about it

1. Is your own name a noun? Why does it start with a capital letter?
2. Can a sentence have two verbs? Try to write one.
3. Why do we say "one sheep" and "two sheep" but "one goat" and "two goats"?
4. Think of a word that can be both a noun and a verb. Use it both ways.
5. If a sentence has no verb, what is missing from the story it tells?