The 5 Basic Patterns

Subject + Verb

I swim. Joe swims. They swam.

Subject + Verb + Object

I drive a car. Joe plays the guitar. They ate dinner.

Subject + Verb + Complement

I am busy. Joe became a doctor. They look sick.

Subject + Verb + Indirect Object + Direct Object

I gave her a gift. She teaches us English.

Subject + Verb + Object + Complement

I left the door open. We elected him president. They named her Jane.

Tenses

Present Continuous

I am swimming. Joe is sleeping. They are jogging.

Present Simple

I play tennis. He swims every day. I usually swim for two hours.

Present Perfect

I have eaten. He has just come home. They've already gone.

Past Simple

I rested. He played tennis yesterday. They drove to Boston.

Past Continuous

I was sleeping. She was cooking a while ago. They were talking.

Past Perfect

I had already seen it. He had played tennis.

Other

Possession

I have a camera. He owns a car. This house belongs to them.

Location

I am here. He swims in the river. They live in the mountains.

It's fun to swim. (Using adjectives similar to fun.)

It isn't healthy to smoke. Smoking is dangerous.

They agreed to swim. (Using verbs similar to agree.)

He didn't desire to work. They like to play.

They asked him to swim. (Using verbs similar to ask.)

He didn't advise me to work. They often encourage me to work harder.

They enjoy swimming. (Using verbs similar to enjoy.)

He didn't enjoy working. He likes playing tennis.

My Other Random-Sentence Generators

English Sentence Machine

Mad-lib / Random Sentence Generator

Bilingual English-Japanese Random Sentence Generator

This makes English sentences with Japanese translations.

For Macintosh Users Only

RandomSentences1.08pCK.bin (38 Kb)

This is a hypercard random sentence generator I wrote some years ago. Download it and try it.