Study materials
Here are two sentences made of the same three words. They mean the opposite of each other.
The dog sees the cat.
The cat sees the dog.
In Ukrainian those words can be shuffled freely, because the endings still show who sees whom. English has almost no endings, so the order does everything. Whoever stands first is the one doing the action.
The core of a sentence
The base of a simple sentence is always the same: first the doer (the subject), then the action (the verb), then what the action is aimed at (the object).
I read books.
Anna likes music.
Each part is easy to find with a question. The subject answers “who?” or “what?” and names the one doing the action. It can be a person, an animal or a thing, and sometimes several words together, like Anna and Max. The verb answers “what does it do?”. It names an action (read, play) or a state (like, have). The object comes after the verb and answers “what?” or “whom?”.
My cat eats fish.
Mila sleeps.
In the first sentence my cat is the subject (who eats?) and fish is the object (eats what?). The second has no object at all, because you cannot sleep something.
An English sentence always has a verb. Ukrainian can say “I student” or “the sky blue” with no verb at all. English puts am, is or are in that place, the forms of the verb be.
I am a student.
The sky is blue.
An English sentence cannot be left without a subject. In Ukrainian "cold" alone is a full sentence, but in English you must say what exactly is cold.
Is cold. → It is cold.
For the weather and the time English puts the word it in the subject's place. It means nothing and is not translated, but the sentence cannot stand without it.
It is late.
It is ten o'clock.
When the subject is a pronoun, a word standing in for a name, it takes the form I, you, he, she, it, we or they. Me, him, us and them go after the verb, and my, his, our and their show whose something is.
We love pizza.
They love us.
Where place and time go
Once the base is ready, details are added to it. They have their own slots too. Place comes first, then time.
| Who | Does what | What | Where | When |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| We | study | English | at home | every evening |
| They | play | football | in the park | on Sunday |
The time can also move to the front of the sentence to stress it. The base stays the same.
Every morning I drink coffee.
Word order settles two more things. A description goes before what it describes (an adjective before its noun), and words like often and always (adverbs) go before the verb.
a new phone, a big city
I often walk home.
Usually, sometimes and never behave the same way. Never already means “not ever”, so don't is not added next to it, even though Ukrainian happily uses two negatives.
I never eat at night.
How to make a negative
To say "not", English calls in the word do. It takes the negative on itself, and the main verb stays in its base form.
They don't work here.
She doesn't drive.
He, she and it take doesn't, and everyone else takes don't. Doesn't also claims the s ending, so the verb itself no longer carries it.
Don't and doesn't are for sentences with an action. When the verb is is, am or are, not goes straight after it, with no do.
He doesn't work.
He isn't at home.
How to make a question
In a question that same helper simply moves to the start. The order of everything else stays as it was.
Do you like tea?
Does Ben live here?
If the question opens with a question word, that word comes first and the rest follows unchanged.
Where do you work?
What does she want?
Pick the question word by what you want to find out. Where asks about a place, when about a time, why about a reason, who about a person, and what about a thing or an action.
When do you go to bed?
Why does he study English?
Common mistakes
The first is dropping the subject the way Ukrainian does.
Is raining today. → It is raining today.
The second is keeping the s after does.
Does she likes tea? → Does she like tea?
The third is building the question as Ukrainian would.
Where you work? → Where do you work?
The first and third mistakes show at the start of the sentence, where the subject belongs and, in a question, do as well. The second shows in the verb itself. If does or doesn't already stands before it, the verb takes no s.