by Revel Arroway

Created on: November 06, 2010   Last Updated: May 23, 2012

Most languages have a basic structure that can be recognized, learned and taken advantage of when learning to speak them. This structure is often diagrammed into grammatical components, such as nouns, verbs, subjects and predicates. However, at any level of language learning, you can take advantage of the most simple of sentence structures and develop practice material that can not only aid in fluency in speaking the language, but also in vocabulary acquisition.

Sentence structure

From the beginnings of language study, you will be presented with basic structures that prove useful in accumulating proficiency. The most common structures learned at first are the greetings. Using English as an example, a student may learn to say “Good morning”, “Good afternoon”, “Good evening” and “Good night”. The structure of these greetings is clear: 

“Good” + time of day word

Further structure is presented in “How are you?” “I am fine” exchanges. Leaving the question structure aside for the moment, “I am fine” gives us the basic structure of:

personal pronoun + be + adjective

Almost any sentence learned in the language class can be broken down into its basic structure. Once you recognize the structure of the new sentence, you are ready to practice with substitution.

Substitution

Substitution is self-explanatory. It is the substitution of one part of a sentence structure with a similar type part to create a new sentence. You’ve seen this with the greetings. By simply changing the time of day in the “Good” + time of day word, you have four basic greetings, all based on the same structure.

In the case of the response to “How are you?”, again you will substitute the adjective for one that expresses how you are feeling at the moment:

I am fine.
I am sad.
I am happy.
I am tired.

Substitution also assists in verb conjugation. Instead of memorizing charts of conjugations, you simply learn to substitute the personal pronoun with its verb form and then complete the sentence:

He is fine.
They are sad.
She is happy.
We are tired.

In this way you are not only sticking verb forms to the appropriate person but also practicing complete, useful sentences instead of simply memorizing, by rote, a chart of words. By putting meaning into the sentences you are contributing to better remembering both the vocabulary used and the verb conjugations needed.

Vocabulary study

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