Introduction to nouns | The parts of speech | Grammar | Khan Academy Video Lecture | Complete Course on English Grammar: Upgrade your Speaking & Listening - Personal Skills

hello grammarians welcome to the english
parts of speech we're going to begin
with the noun the lovely wonderful noun
your friend and mine they're mostly what
you're going to encounter in sentences
most sentences in English contain at
least one noun or a pronoun but we'll
get to pronouns later a noun is
basically anything and I know that's not
an especially helpful definition but
we'll get more more specific in a minute
and that is basically anything at all
now the way this is taught in
traditional grammar is to say that a
noun is a person place or thing which is
fine I think we can make that a little
bit sharper and expand that out by
saying that they are that nouns are
people or living things places things or
ideas I think ideas is the one that
usually gets left out so nouns can be
people places things and ideas let's put
that in action so this is Raul he is
from Argentina he is a penguin Raul has
big dreams now okay so I want to take
these three sentences and find the nouns
in them using the test so the test is is
it a person or a living thing a place a
thing or an idea and if it's any of
those things then it falls into the
category of words in English which we
call nouns so sentence number one this
is Raul what is Raul well Raul is a
person or a living thing so we're just
going to say person so now next sentence
he is from Argentina
now Argentina happens to be a place so
therefore it is also a noun so kind of
noun called the proper noun just like
Raul is but we'll get to that later
so Argentina is an
now Argentina incidentally is a country
and the word country is also a noun
because it is a thing so since the third
he is a penguin now penguin is a living
living being or a thing so we can say oh
yes
penguin that is a noun as well so you've
noticed I'm not circling he or this
these words are our pronouns or relative
pronouns and they're they can sometimes
behave like nouns but I wouldn't I
wouldn't call them nouns that'll just
get confusing so these are these are
pronouns and we'll get to them later
sentence number four Raul has big dreams
so here we have Raul again we know from
the first sentence that it's a person's
name so we're just going to say this is
also a noun again and dreams now a dream
isn't a person a place it's not it's
it's a thing sure the reason I put in
idea as a fourth category is to get it
stuff that you can you can't pick up
like for example the war so dream yes
dream is a noun
dream is maybe a little tangible because
it's something you can imagine but the
idea of like we're like bigness or if
you prefer you know size the the size of
Raul's plumage was astonishing look at
that gorgeous plumage it's a little
penguin mohawk boom the size of Raul's
plumage was astounding now in that
sentence size is a noun but it's not
it's not it's not a physical thing it's
not a person it's not a place it's not
something you can pick up it's an idea
so that's why I include this fourth
category so if you're trying to figure
out whether or not a word is a noun
just apply this test ask yourself is it
a person a place a thing or an idea you
my friend will be golden
you can learn anything Dave it out