Improve Your Writing: Common & Proper Nouns

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Hi, I'm Rebecca.

In this lesson, I'm going to show you a really easy way to improve your English writing and

that is by learning the difference between a common noun and a proper noun.

Now, this will help you.

Doesn't matter what you're doing.

Whether you're appearing for an English exam like the IELTS or TOEFL, or whether you want

to improve your professional writing or your email.

It will help you, and it will help you right away, because it's really easy to understand,

So, let's get started.

So, first of all, what is the difference between a common noun and a proper noun?

A noun in general refers to a person, place, thing, or animal.

And a common noun refers to any person, place, thing, or animal.

And a few other categories, but those are the main ones.

So, it could be anything, not a specific one.

But here, when we're talking about proper nouns, a proper noun talks about a specific

person or place or thing or animal, okay?

And we're going to look at lots of examples so you understand exactly what to do.

Why is this important?

What does it matter if we're talking about a common noun or a proper noun?

Because we do not capitalize any of the common nouns.

But we always have to capitalize the proper nouns in English.

So, when you're writing and if you don't know what's a common noun and what's a proper noun,

then you're likely to make lots of mistakes with capitalization.

And that is a basic mistake, especially if you're doing an exam, or even if you're doing

something professionally.

It really doesn't look good, and it's such an easy thing to fix.

So, let's look at some examples.

So, for example, common noun, woman, right?

But here, proper noun could be Jane Wilson, right?

That's a specific person, not just a woman, but a specific woman.

So, we had to capitalize, right?

Here, we're just talking about he lives in the city, she lives in that country.

Any city, any country, not specific.

But here, it becomes specific.

London, England.

So again, we see the capital letters at the beginning.

Here, he lives on that street.

Here, we have names.

He lives on Main Street.

So we're capitalizing M and S. The S is part of the name of the street, Main Street, okay?

So, we capitalize both letters.

Also in English, it's so important, we capitalize the names of languages.

This is not true in many languages.

We do not - they do not capitalize the names of languages.

So, be very careful of that if you are from one of those language groups, okay?

So, in English, we always capitalize the name of a language.

But if we're just saying, "What languages do you speak?", that's a common noun.

But, "He speaks Spanish", that's a proper noun.

What's your nationality?

In general, any nationality.

Or, you could say, "She's Mexican."

That's a proper noun.

What day is it today?

What month were you born?

Any day, any month, not specific.

But here, it becomes specific.

It's a proper noun.

So, we have to capitalize, in English, the names of all of the days of the week, okay?

Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, everything, and all the months of the year.

These are also capitalized, always.

And the way you can see it is, is it specific or is it general?

If it's general and it could be anything, that's a common noun.

If it's specific, that's a proper noun.

And what do we do with the proper nouns?

We capitalize them, okay.

And what do we do here?

We do not capitalize them.

He works in that company.

Okay, any company.

Or, she works at Microsoft.

Specific company.

He lives in that building.

Any building, common noun.

Or, they live in the White House, a very specific building, alright?

Next: Have you seen that movie?

Any movie, right?

Have you seen Star Wars?

A specific movie.

So, it's capitalized.

And you want to capitalize all the main parts of that name, okay?

And they live by the ocean, any ocean.

Or, they live near the Atlantic Ocean, a specific ocean.

So, proper nouns have to be capitalized, and common nouns are not capitalized.

Let's find out by actually doing some practice, alright?

The best way and the most important way to improve your English is not just to learn

the theory and say, "Yeah, okay, I got it."

That's step one.

The second step is always to do the practice.

So, this is like one small change that you're going to make, but I can tell you it's going

to make so much difference in your English.

And, in fact, I've also designed a course based on these same principles.

It's called "Correct Your English Errors in 10 Minutes a Day".

And what you do is, every day, you take one point and then you learn it, in short, and

then you test yourself, you check.

At the end of the week, you check again.

At the end of the month, you check again.

And that way, you're moving forward with small grammar corrections and vocabulary, punctuation,

pronunciation, lots of things, okay?

So, if you're interested in that, I'll put a link for you in the description, alright?

So, are you ready to do some practice now with this?

Now, in our first exercise, we have ten words.

So, what I want you to do is to tell me if these are common nouns or proper nouns, okay?

And I'll write C for common and P for proper.

The first one: beach.

If you need more time, you can always pause the video and then continue with me, or just

So, the first one is a common noun.

That is a proper noun.

That's a common noun.

Guitar - common noun.

Portuguese, good.

You have a big clue here, right?

We'll talk about that when we finish.

Number six: Batman.

That is a - we'll put it here - proper noun.

Laptop - common noun.

September - proper noun

Mt. Everest, good.

That is a common noun.

I hope you found those really easy, and you did have a big clue, because all of the proper

nouns, right, were capitalized.

But at least now, you can tell the difference between a common noun, which is talking about

any person, place, or thing, and a proper noun, which is talking about a specific person,

place, thing, etc.

That part was easy.

Now, let's apply it a little more seriously.

So here, we have eight sentences, and they have no capitals.

But we need capitals, right?

So, I'm going to read the sentence.

Again, if you want, you can pause the video and then join me after that, or we can do

So, I want you to tell me where you need to capitalize any of the words.

Number one: my interview is on thursday, july 7.

What shall I capitalize?

So, first of all, I didn't mention it yet, but I think you know but let me remind you

that, of course, in English, whenever we start a new sentence or a question, we have to start

with a capital letter, okay?

That's always the case.

Doesn't matter what kind of word it is.

So, in this one, what do we have to capitalize?

Definitely the M. My interview is on thursday, july 7.

We have to capitalize what else?

Thursday and July, right?

Because it's the first word in the sentence.

This because it's a specific day, and this because it's a specific month.

And these are proper nouns.

Next: she learns math and english.

Think about this one a little bit.

What do we capitalize, or do we capitalize anything?

So, you know about this already.

So, we're going to capitalize that one: She learns math and english.

So, do we capitalize math?

So, any other subjects, okay, like math, geography, science, history, art.

We don't capitalize those if we're just talking about the subject in general, okay?

Those are just common nouns.

But what do we capitalize?

Because this is a language, English.

So, we need to capitalize that one, okay?

All languages, it doesn't matter.

Number three: they live in las vegas.

What do we capitalize there?

So, of course, the beginning - They, and then what else?

Here, these two, right?

Because this is a part of the name, just like if we had New York, right?

We'd capitalize the N for New and the Y for York.

And here, L for Las and V for Vegas, alright?

You're getting it.

What a difference.

Look at all the mistakes there would have been if we haven't made these corrections

and wait until we finish all of it, okay?

Number four: my cousin, lucas, is from brazil.

How do we correct this sentence?

Okay, so I'll do this already.

So: My cousin, lucas.

Is Lucas a common noun or a proper noun?

That's a proper noun, right.

Perfect. "is from brazil."

Do we need to capitalize anything there?

Are there any proper nouns there?

Yes, yes, okay, I heard you, right!

Okay, Brazil, right?

Because we're not just saying anything country, we're talking about specific country.

We're talking about a specific person.

And we have the beginning of the sentence.

Alright, great.

You're doing wonderfully.

Number five: alex is a big fan of the new york yankees.

So, what do we do there?

What corrections do we need?

So, we need this one, so let's do that.

Alex is a big fan of new york yankees.

So, this is a team, so we need to - all of it is the name of the team.

So, we need to capitalize "New York Yankees".

So, the names of teams are always capitalized.

Next, number six: we met for coffee at starbucks.

Do we need to change anything?

You do know about this one, I know you know that one.

We met for coffee at starbucks.

There is one change necessary and it is here, right?

The name of the coffee shop.

It's not just any coffee shop.

If we said, "We met at the coffee shop", then that's just a common noun, right?

But this is a proper noun, and we need to capitalize it.

Number seven: he got a job at samsung.

What do we do there?

Let's change this.

He got a job at Samsung.

So, Samsung is the name of a particular company, so it's a proper noun.

So, we need to capitalize that one.

You're doing great.

Look at all the corrections you've made here.

And the last one says: i would like to learn greek.

Because I have a really good friend who is from Greece.

And so, I want to learn Greek.

So, what do we need to capitalize?

And by the way, this letter I, okay, has to be capitalized always.

It doesn't matter if it's at the beginning of a sentence, of course.

But even if it was anywhere in the sentence, the letter and the word I, the word I, not

just the letter, the word I has to always be capitalized, okay?

Please be careful of that.

Some people forget.

I would like to learn greek.

So, do I need to capitalize anything else here?

Is there any other proper noun here?

Yeah, there is.

Right here, this language, right?

Greek is a language.

So, we need to capitalize that.

So, look at all this.

Look at all the corrections we made in just eight sentences.

Imagine if you had these sentences on an exam or if you were writing these in an email or

a business report.

You wouldn't want to make all these mistakes.

And now, you have learned the secret.

Just think, is it a common noun?

Is it talking about something general?

Or is it a proper noun?

Is it talking about something specific?

You've got this, you've got it, good for you.

Now, the best way to really lock it down even further is go to our website at www.engvid.com

and do the quiz there, okay?

Practice a little bit more.

Say that's it, this is the last time I'm going to make this kind of mistake, because I've

got the principle.

But once you understand the principle, the best way to really get it is to apply it.

SO, do that, do the quiz.

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Thanks very much for watching, and all the best with your English.