English: Nouns

A noun is a part of speech that names a person, place, thing, idea, action or quality. All nouns can be classified into two groups of nouns:

•      Common Nouns

•      Proper Nouns

A)    Common Nouns

A common noun is the generic name for a person, place, or thing in a class or group.

Unlike proper nouns, a common noun is not capitalized unless it either begins a sentence or appears in a title. 

Example:
car, hat, bottle, table, chair, ball, boy, girl ,dog, rabbit, elephant, chicken, horse.

Let’s check with this example.

            If there are number of children standing in front of you. And suddenly you shouted “Hey Child”. Then you will get response from every child present over there. Hence child is general name. Hence child is a common noun.

B)    Proper Nouns

Names of people or places such as your name, your friend's name, your parents' name or the name of your town and country are special naming words. These words are called proper nouns. Special naming words or proper nouns always begin with a capital letter.

 

Example: Mohit, Shreya, India, etc

                Let’s take a same example as we took above. But this time you know a name of a child called “Chang”. When you will say, “Hey Chang”, then only the child whose name is Chang will respond to you. Hence Chang is the unique or special name of a child hence it is called as Proper Noun.

Difference in Common and Proper Nouns

Common Noun	Proper Noun
They are just generic name for human, animals, things etc.	They are the unique names for human, Countries, cities etc.
For eg- dog, cat, boy, girl, language, book, etc.	For eg- Mahesh, India, Shailaja, Mumbai, etc.
First letter should always in small letter. Only capital when they are in beginning of any sentence.	First Letter should always be in Capital

 

Some Sentences of Common Nouns

•       I love to play with my dog.

•       Birds live on trees.

•       I love to read storybooks.

•       These chocolates and cakes are so delicious.

 

Some Sentences of Proper Nouns

•       My sister was born in March month.

•       Last year we visited the Niagara Falls.

•       I visited the Taj Mahal in India.

•       My name is Mark