A. Look at the underlined words in the following passage :

Anika is in class seven. She lives in a village of Jamalpur with her parents. She has two sisters. She often takes them to school. She has to help her mother as well. Her father is a small businessman. In her free time, Anika likes to draw pictures and write poems in Bangla. Anika's dream is to become a computer engineer.

These are all nouns. A noun is a word used to refer to people, animals, objects, substances, states, events, ideas and feelings.

B. Nouns can be countable or uncountable. The nouns which can be counted are countable and those which cannot be counted are uncountable

Read the following sentences and say whether the underlined nouns are countable or uncountable:

He has many friends.

Kamal has given me some good news.

Urmi borrowed some books from the library.

Afsana eats bread for breakfast.

Zahid's father is a teacher.

C. Countable nouns have two forms: singular and plural. The singular form refers to one person or thing and the plural form refers to more than one person or thing.

a. How to make plurals

Regular plurals are formed by adding 's' to the singular forms of nouns.
For example

book ----------- books
flower ----------- flowers
teacher ---------- teachers

b. By adding '-es' to nouns ending in '-ss', '-ch', '-s', '-sh' or '-x'. For example:

watch ------------ watches

class ----------- classes

box --------- boxes

c. Nouns ending in consonants and '-y' change to 'ies' in the plurals.For example:

country -------- countries
victory ----------victories
lady ---------- ladies

d. Nouns ending in a vowel and '-y' have an '-s' in the plurals. For example:
boy ---------- boys
day ------- days
key ------- keys

e. Some common nouns have irregular plurals. For example:
child --------- children
foot ------- feet
mouse -----------mice

Give the plurals of the following nouns. One is done for you:

horse ------horses
woman -----------
tooth -------
glass -------
wish -------
truck ---------
pencil-------
friend -------
monkey -------
tomato -------
way--------
eye ---------

D. Rewrite these sentences using plural nouns. One is done for you:

1. A bus is quicker than a rickshaw. / Buses are quicker than rickshaws.
2. A tiger is a ferocious animal./ ___________
3. A banker earns more money than a teacher. / _________
4. A laptop is an expensive piece of equipment. / ______
5. A student has to work hard. / ________
6. A good book helps to pass time. / ______

E. Complete these sentences with a singular or plural noun:

1. The________ stops outside our house. (car / cars).
2. The ________ were waiting for me. (child/children)
3. The ________ are in the shelf. (book/books)
4. Do you know the ________ that lives next door? (man/men)
5. The dentist pulled out the ________ that was hurting. (tooth/teeth)
6. The ________ who was waiting here has gone home. (boy/boys)

F. Complete these sentences with a singular or a plural verb:

1. The children ______ ready for school. (is getting/ are getting)
2. My uncle ______ in the army. (is/are)
3. The flower ______ sweet. (smell/smells)
4. The chocolates we bought ______ very expensive. (was/were)
5. The letters you posted yesterday ______ confidential. (was/were)
6. The young man you met yesterday _______ transferred to this office recently. (has been/ have been)

A. Look at the underlined words in the following texts:
a. Mr Ahmed is reading a book. It is very interesting.
b. Students of this school are very disciplined. They all stay in the hostel.
c. The game teacher asked players to go to the field in the afternoon. But nobody was there.

Note: Here 'It' refers to a book, 'they' refers to students and 'nobody' refers to players. Here it, they and nobody are called pronouns as they are used instead of nouns. In other words, pronouns are alternatives to nouns. When something or someone is already mentioned in a sentence you refer to them again by using a pronoun.

B. Look at the pronouns in the box:

These are called personal pronouns. Let us learn more about personal pronouns. Pronouns have 3 forms namely subjective, objective and possessive. Look at the table below and see different forms of pronouns.

My brother is healthy. He weighs 75 kg.

Ms Shaila works in a bank. She has been doing this job for the last 15 years.Note: In Engli

sh, 'he' and 'she' normally refer to people, but they often refer to animals too.

D. Now use personal pronouns in the following text:

Maruf's father is a businessman. _____ has been in business for about 15 years. Currently in his farm, there are 20 people working full time. _____ has three children who are going to school. Maruf is _____ second child, the youngest and eldest are both ______ daughters.

E. Let us use pronouns in their possessive forms. Look at the examples:

This is our school.

Who is your brother?

Do you know where my pen is?

Look at the following sentences. 'Yours', 'hers', 'his' and 'ours' are also possessives.

This is my book. That is yours.
These toys are hers.
This bicycle is his.
This garden is ours.

Now use possessives in the following sentences.

After retirement Mr Kamal is living in _____ own village. He lives with his wife who has also retired from ______ job as a school teacher. _______ children live in Bogra where they have own families. _______ children often ask them to visit them.

A. Look at the underlined words in the following sentences:

Sharmin is a pretty girl.
Our library is big.
Do you have any digital camera?

Note: The words 'pretty', 'big' and 'digital' describe a girl, a library and a camera respectively. These words are called adjectives.

Look at the underlined words in the following text:

Ms Tahmina Anwar is a skilled teacher. She is qualified too. She has a long teaching experience. She has an excellent academic record as well. She is a favourite teacher to her students as she is very caring.

Now say which words these adjectives describe or modify.

B. Now look at the passage below and fill in the gaps with adjectives:

My uncle is a ______ engineer. He works in a ______ company as a _____ engineer. He graduated in _____ engineering from BUET. He also studied abroad for his _____ qualification. Currently he is in charge of a __________ project.

C. You may use words with 'ing' ending as adjectives to describe the effect that something has on your feelings or on the feelings of people in general.

Look at the words in the box below and use some of them as adjectives in your own sentences:

The past participle forms of verbs that describe our feelings can be used as adjectives too. Look at the words in the box below:

Use 4-5 of these adjectives in your own sentences:

D. Now use appropriate words in the blanks of the following sentences:

1. My friend Tumpa is _____ in music. But she thinks cricket is an ______ game.
2. Moynamoti is an _______ place to visit but my uncle was ________ with the long journey there.
3. I felt really _______ to see my teacher in my uncle's wedding; it ______ was _____ too.
4. The film was quite _____ but I felt _____ to my favorite _______ heroine there.
5. I was so _______ in the work that I could finish in due time. And my teacher thinks it is _______ .

Look at the underlined words in the following sentences:

He goes to his school regularly.

We really enjoyed our picnic.

Some students are playing in the field.

me and meet us next week.

Zamil: Do you often visit your grandma?

Asif: Yes I do! I visit her frequently.

Juthi: Can you please supply us with milk daily?

Milkman: No madam, I can give you milk only twice a week.

These are all adverbs. Can you guess what words they modify?

Adverbs usually modify verbs, but they often modify adjectives, nouns, other adverbs and whole phrases or sentences:

Note: 'Personally' gives the speaker's attitude. We often use commas after such an adverb when it modifies the whole sentence.

An adverb comes after a verb. It is usually a word but sometimes a group of words modifies a verb. Then that group is called an adverbial phrase. Any adverb or adverbial phrase that modifies a verb is called an adverbial.

Rakib looked at his friends nervously after he had lost his admit cards.

Here the underlined word describes how something has happened. This is an adverbial of manner.

The toy was lying on the table.

Here the item describes where something was. It is an adverbial of place.

They visited their hometown last month.

Here the underlined item tells when something happens. It is an adverbial of time.

Now fill in the gaps with appropriate adverbs:

He opened the door _______ .

Our music class is held ______ .

All students were present ______ .

He ________ made this comment.

Bangladesh Cricket team is doing ______ .

Look at the underlined words in the following text:

Mr and Mrs Ali request their pleasure for your gracious presence at the wedding ceremony of their eldest son Iftekhar Ali with Dilruba Yasmin, youngest daughter of Mr and Mrs Rafik Ahmed to be solemnized on Saturday, 21 January 2016 at Platinum Convention Center, Dhanmondi, Dhaka at 7.30 pm.

These words are called prepositions. A preposition is followed by a noun or its equivalent.

A. Use the following prepositions in sentences of your own:

B. Complete the following text by using appropriate prepositions.

My auntie lives ______ Mogbazar just ______ Holy Family Hospital. Her flat is ______ the 5th floor. She lives ______ her family there. She often visits her good friend and neighbor who lives just one floor up; the top floor ______ the building. My auntie has been living in her flat ______ the last three years.

A. Read the following passage and notice the words in bold:

Dipu and Raj are good friends but they are not of the same age. They have been even together as neighbors. Many years back they thought they would settle abroad but after their higher study overseas they decided to buy land in the same area. When they found it together, Raj said to Dipu, "Let's buy it now or never". They have not constructed any building yet.

The words and, but, or, because, yet are called conjunctions. The main function of these words is to link words, phrases and clauses together.

Now write five sentences using each of the above conjunctions.

B. Read the following sentences and notice the underlined words:

Wow, so big a cake!

Alas! They have lost the game.

Oops, I have got hurt!

Omg, how could you do that!

The above underlined words are interjections. An interjection is a part of speech which expresses a strong feeling of joy, pain, surprise or disgust.

Now make some sentences using the following interjections.

Hi oh hurrah ah