VOA · Everyday Grammar
Advanced · C1learner speed8:042025-02-04public domain
Everyday Grammar digs into one grammar topic per episode — verb tenses, prepositions, sentence patterns — with plenty of spoken examples. Because you are listening to language about language, it doubles as grammar review while you train your ears.
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01From VOA Learning English, this is Everyday Grammar.
02English has many patterns.
03Basic grammatical patterns can explain the structure of around 95% of sentences in English, says Martha Cohn, a grammar expert.
04Learning and mastering these patterns can help you improve your writing and speaking skills.
05We have discussed three common patterns in previous Everyday Grammar stories.
06Today we will explore another common pattern, the intransitive verb pattern.
07To start you thinking about intransitive verbs, consider this passage.
08It is from the poem, The Human Family, by famous writer and poet Maya Angelou.
09By the end of this story, you will be able to recognize and understand the intransitive verb pattern that Angelou uses many times in the stanza.
10The intransitive verb pattern is unusual.
11It is unusual because, unlike other verb patterns, the predicate requires only the verb.
12common intransitive verbs include action verbs.
13Go, come, walk, cry, or laugh, for example.
14In these verbs, the subject's action is not applied to an object.
15In other words, most intransitive verbs can end sentences.
16They do not need nouns or adjectives to their right.
17The lines from the classic American song, Just Friends, give an example of the intransitive verb pattern in its most basic form.
18We loved, we laughed, we cried.
19However, sentences with just the subject and intransitive verb are not very common in writing or speaking.
20Usually, the sentence has more information, an adverbial structure.
21Adverbials are words or phrases that give information about time.
22time, place, manner, or reason.
23Adverbials answer questions like, how often, where, why, when.
24The two most common adverbial structures you will find are adverbs and prepositional phrases.
25Adverbs such as suddenly, quickly, here, soon, or sometimes modify a verb.
26Prepositional phrases are groups of words that begin with a preposition and are followed by an object, usually a noun phrase.
27Adverbials are words that begin with a verb.
28Common prepositions include in, on, at, between, above, and below.
29Adverbs and prepositional phrases often follow intransitive verbs.
30Think back to the basic intransitive verb pattern.
31Subject plus intransitive verb.
32It is grammatically correct to say a simple sentence like this.
33We laughed or subject plus intransitive verb.
34You can put more information into the sentence by adding an adverb.
35Or, you could give even more information by adding a prepositional phrase.
36We laughed at the man's silly jokes.
37Or, subject plus intransitive verb plus prepositional phrase.
38In intransitive verb patterns, adverbs or prepositional phrases are often referred to as optional.
39In other words, a sentence is still grammatical without them.
40You, as the speaker or writer, choose how much information you want to include in the sentence.
41Now, think back to the stanza of Maya Angelou's poem.
42We love and lose in China.
43We weep on England's moors.
44And laugh and moan in Guinea.
45And thrive on Spanish shores.
46You can see that every single line uses an intransitive verb paired with a prepositional phrase.
47Consider the first line, we love and lose in China.
48The subject is we, and two intransitive verbs, love and lose, are paired with the prepositional phrase in China.
49The two verbs are joined by a conjunction, and...
50We love and lose in China.
51Or, subject plus intransitive verb plus conjunction plus optional subject plus intransitive verb plus prepositional phrase.
52The second two lines follow the same patterns as the first two lines.
53This series of patterns is an example of parallelism, which you can read about in an earlier everyday grammar story.
54To practice using the intransitive verb pattern, try writing four lines of poetry in the style of Angelou's poem.
55Post your writing in the comments section of this story or on our Facebook page.
56Remember, you should not use Angelou's exact words.
57Rather, you should choose your own noun phrases, intransitive verbs, and prepositional phrases.
58Just put your own words into the pattern we discussed today.
59Learning this pattern, and other patterns discussed in previous grammar stories, will not only help you study the writing of great authors.
60These patterns will help you write and speak in your own clear, concise sentences, too.
61I'm Jill Robbins.
62I'm Jonathan Evans.
63And I'm John Russell.
64I'm John Russell.
65I'm John Russell.
// transcribed with Whisper AI — reading it is easy; catching it by ear is the skill
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