Verbs tell us about actions or states. Consider this statement: My aunt is a doctor and she studied in Chicago. The word "is" explains a state and "studied" describes an action. In addition, the time of the event or state is indicated by the tense of the verb. The verb "is," in the present tense, shows she is a doctor now and "studied," in the past tense, tells us the studying was in the past.
A noun names people, other living creatures, things and places as well as abstract ideas. Think about this hotel sign: "Guests who leave valuable items in the room do so at their own risk." "Guests" is a noun that refers to people, "items" a noun referring to things, and "room" a noun referring to a place. All three are physical objects. The last word in the statement, "risk," is also a noun, but it is an idea rather than a thing we can see or touch.
Adjectives describe nouns. Some reveal the physical characteristics of a noun. When we say the United States Capitol is a large, white building, the adjectives "large" and "white" tell us its size and color. Adjectives also say other things about nouns, including emotion (happy), opinion (beautiful), quantity (many) and possession (their). Some adjectives come from two forms of verbs, called the past participle and the present participle. Examples of these are "excited" and "exciting" or "annoyed" and "annoying."
Adverbs add information about a verb. If you say your neighbor sings, you can add information about how he sings by adding words like "beautifully," "noisily," "happily" or "tunefully." These words are all adverbs. So are words like "always" or "sometimes" that say how often the person sings. Adverbs can also qualify adjectives and other adverbs. If your neighbor is very annoying because he sings too noisily, the adverb "very" qualifies the adjective "annoying" and the adverb "too" says more about the adverb "noisily."