STEP 1


Important points     

 

I

The word I is always spelled with a capital letter.

It

Root from The

Is / Are

Root from Be

Vocabulary


dssda     Read and memorize these nouns and adjectives.


Nouns


bed

building

door

flower

house

pot

room

table

window

 

Adjectives

  

round

wide ---- narrow

wide

  narrow

Opposites

ON               OFF
wide      

  OVER          wide
  wide          UNDER

Structure

  • Nouns

     A noun is a word used to name a person, animal, place, thing, and an abstract idea.
     The only form-change in English nouns is the change from singular to plural. The regular plural is formed by adding an “s”.

Bed

Beds

Door

Doors

Pot

Pots

  • Adjectives

An adjective is a word that describes or modifies a noun or a pronoun.
Descriptive adjectives are used:

(a) Immediately before a noun.

  • A round window.
  • The narrow door.

(b) After some form of BE (or SEEM, see Step 7) to qualify its subject.

  • The room is narrow.
  • The window is wide.

English adjectives are invariable, with some exceptions that will be learned in the next steps.

A wide door.

Wide doors.

The room is narrow.

The rooms are narrow.

  • A and The

     “A” becomes “An” before a word starting with a vowel sound, but apart from this, “A” and “The” are invariable.


     “A“ is used with a singular noun (in cases where the more emphatic numeral one (1) is not required) when talking of one of the group of things or persons so named. It simply indicates that we are speaking of a single thing, without, like the, pointing to it as any special one. Any noun referring to a single distinct object, such as pot, must have “A” before it, if it is not qualified by the, one, or some other non-descriptive adjective.

  • This is a door.                         (One of the group of things called "door".)
  • A flower is on the table.           (Not any particular flower, just one flower.)

     Because it is unselective, it may be used with the force of 'any' or 'all' for making general statements.

  • A house is a building.           (Any house is, i.e., all houses are buildings.)

     “A” is naturally never used with a plural noun. When the reference is unselectively to an unspecified number of things named, or to all of them in general, the plural noun may sand by itself.

  • Houses are buildings.                  (All houses)
  • Flowers are on the table.            (Some flowers -- more than one)

     “The” is used before either a singular or a plural noun when what is being talked of has been singled out by previous reference or is the only thing, person, or group to which the description appliers.

  • This is a bed. The bed is narrow.        (That is, the bed just mentioned.)
  • A flower is under the table.                (There being only one table in the room.)
  • My bed is the narrow bed.                (This distinguishes it, from others.)

     Note: As will be seen from these examples, when a noun is qualified directly by a descriptive adjective in addition to “A” or “The”; “A” or “The” precedes the other adjective.

  • Pronouns

Relation

Form for Subject

Form for Object

Possessive Adjective

1 st

Singular             I

ME

MY

Plural             WE

US

OUR

2 nd

S + P             YOU

YOUR

YOUR

3 rd

Singular   Male             HE

HIM

HIS

                Female             SHE

HER

HER

               Neutral             IT

IT

ITS

Plural             THEY

THEM

THEIR

     This Table gives the form changes of the personal pronouns. In this Step and the next you will meet on I, its possessive adjective my, and it.


     As you will see, there are not many pronoun forms. The changes of form indicate whether the pronoun is singular or plural, the part it plays in the sentence and, in the case of the third Person Singular only, whether what the pronoun stands for is a male, a female, or a thing. 1 The possessive adjectives corresponding to the different pronouns are used only preceding a noun and are invariable like other English adjectives.

1Animals, however, are very commonly, like things, referred to by the pronoun it.


  • I put a bed in the room.
  • I take a pot off the table.
  • This is my house.
  • That is my room.
  • That is my bed.
  • This is a door. It is a wide door.
  • A pot is on the table. I put flowers in it.
  • The table is by the door. I put it by the window.
    • This and That

Singular

Plural

THIS

THESE

THAT

THOSE

“This” and “that" are pointing pronouns.

  • This    The thing here that I am pointing at.
  • That    The thing there that I am pointing at.

     The pointing need not be a physical act.

This is a building

These are buildings.

That is a bed. 

Those are beds.

I put this on that.         

I put these on those.

     They are also used as pointing adjectives, taking their plural forms before a plural noun. These are the only adjectives which have any change of form.

This window is wide.      

These windows are wide.

That window is narrow.       

Those windows are narrow

     In accordance with the rule at the end of Section 3, this, that, and the possessive adjective my preceded any descriptive adjective before a noun.

  • My narrow bed.
  • This round pot.
  • That wide table.
  • Operators

Root Form

Present

Past

Future

BE

I

AM

I

   WAS

WILL BE

He, she, it

IS

He, she, it

We

ARE

We

WERE  

You (s. & p.)

You (s. & p.)  

They

They

PUT

PUT

PUT

WILL PUT

but He, she, it. PUTS

TAKE  

TAKE

TOOK

WILL TAKE

but He, she, it. TAKES

  

   The 'operators' of Basic English are a special selection of the verbs of ordinary English. They are called operators because most of them name simple physical operations.

Many English verbs express complete ideas combining the senses of several parts of speech. For example, disembark = 'get off the ship’; that is to say, it may be broken down into the operator get with a preposition and a noun. Most languages have verbs of this complex kind. In Basic they are expressed by putting together simpler units. The operators are key words in the Basic system. Complete familiarity with their senses, their form changes, and the ways in which they combine with other words is an important step towards becoming fluent with the limited vocabulary of Basic.


      The chief tenses of the three operators to be learned in this Step are listed in the above Table. In this Step and the next, only the Present Forms of the operators are used and, except in the case of be, you will not meet the Third Person Singular. You will notice that be is irregular. In this Step you have to learn only the Third Person Singular and the Plural.


      As the opposite of put, take, like put, has to be followed by a preposition, etc. ; but take may also be used by itself (see p. 13).

  • This is my room.
  • My room is in that house.
  • I put the pot on the table.
  • I take the pot off the table.
  • Prepositions


     Almost all prepositions in Basic are names of directions or positions in space. These 'names of directions', as they are called in the Basic system to emphasize their nature, are the chief group that combine with the operators to form verbs. Get the simple physical senses of the operators and the simple spatial senses of this group into your head for a start. You will find that all the other uses which you meet later are based on these.

  • The bed is against the door.
  • The bed is between the windows.
  • The table is between the door and the window.
  • The table is by the bed.
  • The bed is in the room.
  • The pot is on the table.
  • The pot is off the table.
  • This room is over my room.
  • My room is under this room.

     A phrase starting with a preposition may be put after a noun to identify the thing in question more exactly.

  • The flowers on the table are my flowers.
  • Conjunctions

AND

+

&

     “And” can join words, phrases, or statements complete in themselves (that is, independent statements).

  • A bed and a table.
  • The pot is on the table and the table is between the beds.

     Two nouns joined by and are treated as a plural.

  • A bed and a table are in the room.
  • Normal Word Order

I put a pot on the round table.


dssda     Look carefully the characteristic word order of a simple English sentence.


hjhk


 
     They are, of course, many alternative types of sentence, but this word order is the primary pattern, and it is used throughout the first two Steps. “Is” and “are” do not name an operation which is done to any thing or person or in any direction. They merely link the subject with a noun, adjective, or preposition, etc. qualifying it.

Exercises

    1. Write four sentences in basic describing what you see in this picture. Use one of the following prepositions in each sentence: between, by, in, on. 

A:

 

2. Name the opposites:

  • That             
  • Narrow       
  • Put              
  • Off              
  • Over           
  • These         

3. Fill in the blanks with the words is, are, a, the.


1.-   _____ window in this room _____ round.
2.-   This _____ _____ room in my house.
3.-   The pot _____ on the table.
4.-   I take _____ pot off the table.
5.-   That _____ my flower.
6.-   _____ flower _____ in a pot.

4. Change this into a statement about more than one bed:

  • This narrow bed is between the windows.

A: