Questa specifica è disponibile solo in inglese.

Learner Grammar — World English on One Page

The whole language, one rule per line. This page is a scannable summary for learners: each rule is a single statement plus a couple of examples. The full specs — with the problem each rule solves, the trade-offs, and the rejected alternatives — are the source of truth; every rule below links to its spec. Read this to learn the language; read the specs to understand why.

Rule keys: O* orthography · P* pronunciation · M* morphology · G* grammar · S* style · W* writing.

Spelling

O1 — One spelling. Use American spelling everywhere; the British variant is dropped. colour → color, centre → center.
O2 — Drop silent letters. Remove purely silent etymological letters. doubt → dout, debt → det.
O3 — One doubling rule. Double a final consonant only after a stressed single vowel + single consonant. stop → stopped, travel → traveling (unstressed, no doubling).
O4 — Left alone. Spelling is regularized only lightly; most words keep their familiar shape so the page still reads as English.
O5 — ough respelling. Respell an ough word only where an informal spelling already exists. through → thru, though → tho, although → altho.

Sound

P1 — Respelling. Every word carries a symbol-free respelling: ordinary letters, hyphens between syllables, CAPITALS on the stress. computer → kom-PYOO-ter.
P2 — One sound, one spelling. The respelling alphabet gives each sound exactly one spelling. cat → KAT, book → BUUK (vs moon → MOON).
P3 — th split. In the key, th = /θ/ (thin → THIN) and dh = /ð/ (this → DHIS).
P4 — Stress marked. Native stress is kept and always shown in CAPITALS; noun/verb stress pairs collapse to the noun’s stress. present (gift/give) → both PREZ-ent.
P5 — Careful speech OK. Weak forms and elision are allowed but never required; the full respelled form is always correct.
P6 — Even rhythm OK. Giving every syllable full weight (syllable-timing) is always intelligible and correct.
P7 — Pitch = question. Pitch is load-bearing for one thing only: a spoken yes/no question rises. In writing, a trailing ? marks it.

Word forms

M1 — Regular verbs. Every past tense and participle is -ed. No irregular verbs. go → goed, take → taked, see → seed.
M2 — One be. be has one present (be) and one past (beed). I be here. They beed late.
M3 — No 3rd-person -s. The present tense has one form for every person. he goes → he go, she tries → she try.
M4 — Regular plurals. Every plural is -s (or -es after a sibilant). child → childs, foot → foots, knife → knifes.
M5 — Comparatives. Both -er/-est and more/most are always valid; suppletives are abolished. good → gooder/goodest (or more good), never better.
M6 — Regular adverbs. Form an adverb with -ly, always (one exception: hard). good → goodly, fast → fastly.

Sentence

G1 — Tense. Three tenses (past, present, future) + optional -ing; no perfect. Still true? Use present + a time phrase. Finished? Use past + a time word. I have lived here ten years → I live here for ten years; I have finished → I finished already.
G2 — One article. One article, the, for known things; nothing for indefinite things. I saw a dog → I seed dog; the dog barked → the dog barked.
G3 — Prepositions. Time = on, location = in, motion = to; real-relation prepositions keep their meaning; a verb keeps its own preposition as vocabulary. in July → on July; listen to music (kept).
G4 — Pronouns. Standard pronoun forms; who/whom → always who; whose kept. the man whom I saw → the man who I seed.
G5 — All nouns count. Every noun can be pluralized; much → many. some information → informations; much homework → many homeworks.
G6 — Questions & negation. No do, no inversion; a wh-word fronts, the rest keeps SVO; a written question takes a trailing ?; not goes before the main verb. Do you like it? → You like it?; I do not like it → I not like it.
G7 — Modals. Four modals — can, must, should, will — with adverbs for finer shades. It may rain → Maybe it will rain.
G8 — Conditionals. if + clause, natural tense, no backshift; the result clause takes will (real) or would (unreal). If I had money, I would buy it → If I have money, I would buy it.
G9 — Passive. be + the verb’s -ed, optional by-phrase. The house was built → The house beed builded.
G10 — Noun possessive. Standard 's (singular) and s' (plural), kept. the dog’s bone; the childs’ toys.
G11 — that-clauses. One word, that, introduces every relative and content clause, never dropped, natural tense. the man I saw → the man that I seed; he said it was cold → he sayed that it beed cold.
G12 — Complements. A verb complement is always to + base verb (modals and let/make/see/hear take the bare verb). I enjoy swimming → I enjoy to swim.
G13 — Subordinators. One word per meaning (if, unless, because, altho, when, while, before, after, until, so that, so), natural tense, leading clause takes a comma. We left because it was late → We leaved because it beed late.
S1 — Word order. Keep Subject → Verb → Object; no fronting or inversion. Never have I seen it → I never seed it.
S2 — Plain words. Prefer the plain, single-sense word: plain verb over opaque phrasal, clearest sense, literal over idiom, regular pairing. give up → quit; bite the bullet → accept the hard thing.
S3 — Time words. Carry “past with present relevance” with a plain time word (already, since, still, just, yet). I have finished → I already finished.
S4 — Adverb slot. Put a manner/frequency/ degree adverb immediately before the main verb. He drives carefully → He carefully drive.
S5 — Politeness. Fixed markers (please / sorry / thank you) and one plain template per speech act, never graded indirectness. Could you possibly send the file? → Please send the file.

Writing

W1 — Punctuation. One mark, one job: no semicolon; the colon only introduces a list; the comma has one closed set of jobs (boundary / list / set-off).
W2 — One register. One neutral register — you write the same way to a professor and to a friend.
W3 — Point first. State the main point first, then support it.
W4 — One idea per paragraph. Each paragraph covers one idea; its first sentence states it.
W5 — Explicit links. Bind sentences with one explicit connective per relation (and, but, so, because, for example, then); never leave the link implicit.
W6 — Repeat, don’t vary. Repeat a noun rather than swapping in synonyms; keep every pronoun’s antecedent unmistakable.