Introduction to nouns | The parts of speech | Grammar | Khan Academy

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 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 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 Raúl. He's from Argentina. He is a penguin. Raúl has big dreams. Now, okay, so I want to take these three sentences and find the nouns in them using the test.

The test is: Is it a person or a living thing, a place, a thing, or an idea? 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 Raúl." What is Raúl? Well, Raúl is a person or a living thing, so we're just gonna say "person." So, noun. Next sentence: "He is from Argentina." Now, Argentina happens to be a place, so therefore it is also a noun. It's a kind of noun called a proper noun, just like Raúl is, but we'll get to that later. So Argentina is a noun.

Argentina, incidentally, is a country, and the word "country" is also a noun because it is a thing. So, since the third sentence states: "He is a penguin." Now, "penguin" is a living being or a thing, so we can say, "Oh yes, penguin, that is a noun as well."

You've noticed I'm not circling "he" or "this." Um, these words are pronouns or relative pronouns, and they can sometimes behave like nouns, but I wouldn't call them nouns—that'll just get confusing. So, these are pronouns, and we'll get to them later.

Sentence number four: "Raúl has big dreams." So here we have Raúl again. We know from the first sentence that it's a person's name, so we're just gonna say this is also a noun. Again, dreams—now, "dream" isn't a person, a place—it's not, it's a thing, sure.

The reason I put in "idea" as a fourth category is to get at stuff that you can't pick up. 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 a word like "bigness," or if you prefer, you know, "size." The size of Raúl's plumage was astonishing. Look at that gorgeous plumage—it's a little penguin mohawk. The size of Raúl's plumage was astounding. Now, in that sentence, "size" is a noun, but 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. 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? And you, my friend, will be golden. You can learn anything. Dave it out.