To understand the structure of language in general, it is necessary to be able to identify the different types of word that make up a sentence. Strictly speaking, sentences are made up of ‘clauses’, clauses are made up of ‘phrases’, and phrases are made up of words, but don't worry about this – for the purposes of these exercises, we will ignore phrases and clauses, and just refer to words and sentences because this is more understandable to the average reader (well, to me at least).
I received a normal secondary school education in the UK during the 1980's, and I scored pretty high marks in English. However, when I left school, I would have been hard pressed to tell you what an adverb is. Maybe they didn't teach us very well, maybe they did but I wasn't paying attention, or maybe I just forgot.
In any case, I will assume that you, as a reader are completely unaware of the difference between nouns, verbs, adverbs, adjectives, pronouns, etc. Apologies if any of these articles sound patronising, but if, like me, you didn't learn this stuff at school (or forgot), then this will all be uncharted territory...
