Why does the same word belong to different parts of speech?

In English, word class is decided by function in the sentence, not by spelling. *Run* is a verb in "I run every morning" and a noun in "Going for a run". *Light* is a noun in "Turn on the light", an adjective in "A light meal", and a verb in "Light the fire". This is one reason English is harder to parse than languages with stricter morphology like Spanish or French.

Do I need to learn the names of every tense and mood?

For passive reading, no. For active production at B1 and above, yes. The Spanish subjunctive, the French passé composé / imparfait split, and the Mandarin aspect particles (了 le, 过 guo, 着 zhe) all map onto English categories you already use unconsciously. Knowing the English term ("present perfect", "subjunctive", "passive voice") lets you transfer the concept across without re-learning it.

Which of these matters most when learning Spanish, French, or Mandarin?

Verbs first, then nouns and adjectives (because of gender and agreement), then prepositions (they are idiomatic in every language and rarely translate one-to-one), then conjunctions and adverbs. Pronouns and determiners are smaller closed classes but they are high-frequency, so worth memorising early.

What is the difference between a direct and an indirect object?

The direct object is the thing the verb acts on; the indirect object is the recipient or beneficiary of that action. In *Maria gave her sister a novel*, *a novel* is the direct object (what was given) and *her sister* is the indirect object (who it was given to). The English test: ask "what?" after the verb to find the direct object, then "to whom" or "for whom" to find the indirect object. Spanish, French, and Mandarin all pronominalise these differently from English, which is why the distinction matters.

English Grammar Primer

The Kilo Lingo grammar pages assume you know what a noun, verb, adjective, and so on are. A lot of adult learners did not have formal English grammar at school, or did but have not used the terminology since. This page is a quick reference so you can look up a term without leaving the site.

The eight traditional parts of speech are noun, pronoun, verb, adjective, adverb, preposition, conjunction, interjection. Most modern grammars add determiner as a ninth. The same word can sit in more than one category depending on how it's used.

At a glance

Part of speech	What it does	Examples
Noun	Names a person, place, thing, idea, or feeling.	book, Sarah, London, freedom
Pronoun	Stands in for a noun.	I, she, them, mine, who, this
Verb	Action or state of being.	run, eat, be, seem, write
Adjective	Describes or modifies a noun.	red, tall, exhausted, friendly
Adverb	Modifies a verb, an adjective, another adverb, or a clause.	quickly, very, often, honestly
Preposition	Shows the relationship between a noun and another word.	in, on, after, with, about
Conjunction	Joins words, phrases, or clauses.	and, but, because, although
Interjection	Short word or phrase expressing emotion. Grammatically detached.	wow, ouch, hmm
Determiner	Comes before a noun to specify which one or how many.	a, the, this, my, three, some
Subject	The noun or pronoun the sentence is about.	Maria writes novels.
Direct object	The thing the verb acts on. Answers "what?" or "whom?".	Maria writes novels.
Indirect object	The recipient or beneficiary. Answers "to whom?" or "for whom?".	Maria gave her sister* the novel.*

Subject, direct object, and indirect object are not parts of speech but they are the most-used sentence roles across the grammar pages.

Noun

A noun names a thing: a person, place, object, animal, idea, or feeling.

Concrete nouns name something you can perceive: book, dog, Rachel, London, coffee.
Abstract nouns name something you cannot: freedom, jealousy, distance, honesty.
Proper nouns name a specific person, place, or organisation and take an initial capital: Sarah, Paris, Trinity College.
Common nouns name a general thing: teacher, city, college.
Countable nouns can be pluralised: one book, two books.
Uncountable nouns cannot: water, advice, music. You can have "some water" but not "two waters".

Example: The teacher gave the students good advice.

Pronoun

A pronoun stands in for a noun so you don't have to repeat it.

Personal pronouns: I, you, he, she, it, we, they, me, him, her, us, them.
Possessive pronouns: mine, yours, his, hers, ours, theirs.
Reflexive pronouns: myself, yourself, himself, herself, itself, ourselves, themselves.
Demonstrative pronouns: this, that, these, those (when standing alone).
Interrogative pronouns: who, whom, whose, which, what (in questions).
Relative pronouns: who, whom, whose, which, that (joining clauses: the book that I bought).

Example: She gave the book to me.

Verb

A verb is the action or state of being in a sentence. Every complete sentence needs at least one verb.

Action verbs: run, eat, think, write, build, decide.
Linking (or copula) verbs connect the subject to a description: be, seem, appear, become, feel. The soup is cold.
Auxiliary (helping) verbs combine with a main verb to mark tense, voice, or mood: be, have, do, will, can, must, should. She has finished the book.
Transitive verbs take a direct object: read a book, eat lunch.
Intransitive verbs do not: sleep, arrive, exist.
Regular verbs form their past tense with -ed: walk -> walked.
Irregular verbs do not: go -> went, write -> wrote, be -> was.

Tenses, voice, and mood are layered on top of verbs. The headline points:

Tense locates the action in time: I walk (present), I walked (past), I will walk (future).
Aspect describes whether the action is ongoing or complete: I am walking (progressive), I have walked (perfect).
Voice describes who is doing the action: The dog bit the postman (active) / The postman was bitten by the dog (passive).
Mood describes the speaker's intent: indicative (statements), imperative (commands), subjunctive (hypotheticals: "if I were rich").

Example: They have been working on the project for months.

Adjective

An adjective describes or modifies a noun.

Descriptive adjectives: red, tall, ancient, exhausted. A tall building.
Comparative adjectives: taller, more interesting. A taller building.
Superlative adjectives: tallest, most interesting. The tallest building.
Quantitative adjectives answer "how many" or "how much": three, several, many, few.

English adjectives go before the noun: a red car, not "a car red". Some Romance and Asian languages put them after; that's one of the first differences you'll notice.

Example: A small, friendly café served excellent coffee.

Adverb

An adverb modifies a verb, an adjective, another adverb, or a whole clause.

Modifying a verb: She speaks quietly.
Modifying an adjective: An extremely good book.
Modifying another adverb: She runs very quickly.
Modifying a whole clause: Honestly, I don't know.

Many adverbs end in -ly (quickly, easily, carefully) but plenty don't (fast, well, often, here, now, very).

Example: She finished the work carefully and quickly.

Preposition

A preposition shows the relationship between a noun (or pronoun) and another word in the sentence. The relationship can be spatial, temporal, or logical.

Spatial: in, on, under, between, behind, beside. The keys are on the table.
Temporal: at, before, after, during, since, until. We met after lunch.
Logical / abstract: of, for, about, with, against. A book about history.

A preposition introduces a prepositional phrase: the preposition plus the noun phrase that follows it. On the table, with my friends, after the meeting.

Example: The cat sat on the mat in the corner.

Conjunction

A conjunction joins words, phrases, or clauses.

Coordinating conjunctions join elements of equal grammatical rank: and, but, or, nor, for, so, yet. Mnemonic: FANBOYS. I read the book and wrote a review.
Subordinating conjunctions join a subordinate clause to a main clause: because, although, if, when, while, since, until, unless. She left because it was late.
Correlative conjunctions work in pairs: either / or, neither / nor, both / and, not only / but also. Neither the cat nor the dog wanted dinner.

Example: He went home, but he forgot his keys.

Interjection

An interjection is a short word or phrase that expresses emotion or reaction. It is grammatically unconnected to the rest of the sentence.

Wow! Ouch! Oh no! Eh? Hmm.

They sit outside the sentence's core grammar and are usually punctuated with an exclamation mark or a comma.

Example: Wow, that was unexpected.

Determiner

Most modern grammars treat determiners as a separate category from adjectives. A determiner comes before a noun to specify which one or how many.

Articles: a, an, the.
Demonstratives: this, that, these, those (when used before a noun: this book).
Possessives: my, your, his, her, its, our, their.
Quantifiers: some, any, many, few, several, all, no.
Numbers: one, two, fifty.

Example: My friend brought three books and some biscuits.

Subject, predicate, object

These are not parts of speech but sentence roles. They appear constantly across the grammar pages and are the structural anchors you will lean on most when mapping English to Spanish, French, or Mandarin.

The subject is the noun or pronoun the sentence is about: Maria writes novels.
The predicate is everything else (verb + the rest): Maria writes novels.

Direct object

The direct object is the thing that receives the action of a transitive verb. To find it, ask "what?" or "whom?" after the verb.

Maria writes novels. Maria writes what? Novels.
The dog bit the postman. The dog bit whom? The postman.
I drank the coffee. I drank what? The coffee.

Only transitive verbs take a direct object. Sleep, arrive, exist are intransitive and cannot have one ("I slept the bed" is not a sentence).

A direct object can be a noun phrase, a pronoun, or a whole clause:

Noun phrase: She read the long Russian novel.
Pronoun: She read it.
Clause: She said that she would come.

When the direct object is a pronoun, English uses the object form: me, him, her, us, them, whom. Maria called me, not "Maria called I". The Romance languages and Mandarin all do this differently (object pronouns clitic onto the verb in Spanish and French; Mandarin uses 把 bǎ or sentence-order tricks), which is why English speakers find object placement one of the first hurdles.

Indirect object

The indirect object is the recipient or beneficiary of the action: who or what the action is done to or for. To find it, ask "to whom?" or "for whom?" after the verb. It only exists alongside a direct object.

Maria gave her sister the novel. Gave the novel to whom? Her sister.
He bought his daughter a bike. Bought a bike for whom? His daughter.
I told you the story. Told the story to whom? You.

English has two equivalent word orders for indirect objects, and modern learners often miss that they are the same construction:

Bare indirect object before direct object: I gave her the book.
Prepositional phrase after the direct object: I gave the book to her.

Both mean the same thing. The first is older and slightly more colloquial; the second makes the relationship explicit and is preferred when the indirect object is long. Spanish, French, and Mandarin handle this split very differently, which is the main reason the indirect object matters as a concept:

Spanish marks the indirect object with the preposition a and a doubling pronoun: Le di el libro a mi hermana.
French uses a clitic pronoun before the verb: Je lui ai donné le livre.
Mandarin uses word order alone, with the indirect object directly after the verb: 我给她那本书 (I give-her-that book).

If you know "indirect object" in English, the foreign-language rule reduces to "this is how my language marks the indirect object", which is much easier than re-learning the concept three times.

Direct vs indirect object: the quick test

Find the verb.
Ask "what?" or "whom?" after the verb. The answer is the direct object.
Ask "to whom?" or "for whom?". The answer (if any) is the indirect object.

Example: The teacher gave the students good advice.

Verb: gave.
Gave what? Good advice. (Direct object.)
Gave to whom? The students. (Indirect object.)

English Grammar Primer: The Parts of Speech, With Examples