Impact-e English Training

Sentence Order

The building block of grammar is the sentence. Sentence structure is not written in stone: it can change and be used creatively to express information in a certain way or to show your personal style and way of thinking.

As in any language, however, there are certain basic rules of sentence order which are commonly stuck to.

The rules:

Every sentence must have a subject and a main verb.
Avoid using an -ing form, an infinitive, an auxiliary verb, or other part of speech instead of a main verb. e.g. "Learning English is fun." is a complete sentence. "Learning English fun." Is not.
A sentence is made up of two basic parts: the subject and the predicate. The predicate may be simple (e.g. "She is learning.") or very complicated (e.g. "She is learning English in an intensive seminar in a foreign country at the moment.") You make a predicate complicated by adding adjectives, adverbs, phrases and clauses.
Certain tenses require auxiliary or helping verbs (e.g. be & have). Do not forget to use the helping verb in the sentence. "She learning English." Is not a complete sentence. "She is learning English." Is a complete sentence.
Adverbs of frequency usually come in front of the main verb. E.g. "She often learns English." When there is a helping verb they come between the helping and the main verb, e.g. "She is always learning English."
Adverbs of time are usually at the beginning or end of the sentence or clause. E.g. "She learns English every week."
Indirect objects come before direct objects if there is no preposition, but after them if there is a preposition. "She sent me her questions." & "She sent her questions to me."

Here are some typical sentence patterns:

	subject	verb
e.g.	The program	works.
	subject	verb	object
e.g.	Jon	wrote	the program.
	Subject	verb	indirect object	direct object
e.g.	Jon	gave	me	the program.
	Subject	verb	direct object	indirect object with preposition
e.g.	Jon	gave	the program	to me.
	Adverb of time	subject	verb	object.
e.g.	Last week	Jon	finished	the program.
	Subject	verb	object	adverb of time
e.g.	Jon	finished	the program	last week.
	Subject	adverb of frequency	verb	object.
e.g.	Jon	often	writes	programs
	subject	verb	object	adverb of manner.
e.g.	Jon	writes	programs	quickly.
	Subject	verb	object	adverb of place
e.g.	Jon	wrote	the program	in Seattle.
	adverb of time	subject verb	object	adverbs of manner & place
e.g.	Last week	Jon wrote	the program	quickly in Seattle.

Of course when you write questions the helping verb comes before the subject, e.g. "Did Jon write the program last week?"

Remember that the sentence order does not change for normal questions if you have a question word at the beginning of the sentence. E.g. "When did Jon write the program?"