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Parts of Speech Identifier
Paste a sentence, paragraph or essay and see every word color-coded by its part of speech: nouns, pronouns, verbs, helping verbs, adjectives, adverbs, prepositions, conjunctions and more. Click any word to see why it got its label. Nothing leaves your browser.
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Click any word to see its part of speech and why it was chosen.
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How to use the Parts of Speech Identifier
- Paste or type your text in the box, or press Try a sample. Words are tagged as you type.
- Read the colors: the legend shows which color is which part of speech and how many of each were found.
- Click a legend button to hide or show that color, for example to see only the adjectives.
- Click any word to see its part of speech and the clue that decided it.
- Choose Traditional 8 parts of speech if your class groups articles with adjectives and helping verbs with verbs, then copy the tagged text or download the CSV.
Parts of speech at a glance
| Part of speech | What it does | Examples | Quick test |
|---|---|---|---|
| Noun | Names a person, place, thing or idea | teacher, river, pencil, courage | Can you put “the” or “a” in front of it? |
| Proper noun | Names one specific person, place or thing | Maria, Chicago, Saturday | Is it capitalized in the middle of a sentence? |
| Pronoun | Takes the place of a noun | she, them, it, my, everyone, who | Can you swap it for a noun? |
| Verb | Shows an action or a state of being | jump, think, is, became | Can you change its tense (jump → jumped)? |
| Helping verb | Works with a main verb to show tense or mood | has (eaten), will (go), can (swim), was (running) | Is another verb right after it? |
| Adjective | Describes a noun or pronoun | tall, blue, wooden, three, curious | Does it answer “what kind?” or “which one?” |
| Adverb | Describes a verb, adjective or other adverb | quickly, very, never, here, tomorrow | Does it answer how, when, where or how much? |
| Preposition | Links a noun to the rest of the sentence | in, on, under, after, with, between | Is it followed by a noun or pronoun (its object)? |
| Conjunction | Joins words, phrases or clauses | and, but, or, because, although, if | Does it connect two ideas? |
| Determiner | Introduces a noun | a, an, the, this, every, some | Does it come right before a noun or its adjectives? |
| Interjection | Shows sudden feeling | wow, oops, hey, hooray | Could it stand alone with an exclamation mark? |
Words that change their part of speech
In English the same spelling often plays different roles, and only the sentence tells you which. That is why the identifier looks at neighboring words, not just a dictionary.
- light: “Turn on the light” (noun), “a light bag” (adjective), “Light the candle” (verb).
- fast: “a fast car” (adjective), “She runs fast” (adverb).
- before: “before lunch” (preposition), “I left before he arrived” (conjunction), “I have seen it before” (adverb).
- that: “that dog” (determiner), “I know that he is right” (conjunction), “the book that I read” (relative pronoun).
- swimming: “Swimming is fun” (gerund, a noun), “a swimming pool” (adjective), “They are swimming” (verb).
Ideas for practice
- Paste a paragraph from your own writing and hide every color except adjectives and adverbs to check whether you are over- or under-describing.
- Count the helping verbs: many “is/was + -ing” and “was + past participle” forms can signal wordy or passive sentences.
- For a classroom activity, have students label a sentence by hand first, then compare with the tool and discuss any differences.
Frequently asked questions
What are the 8 parts of speech?
Traditional English grammar names eight: noun, pronoun, verb, adjective, adverb, preposition, conjunction and interjection. Many modern grammars also separate determiners (a, an, the, this, every), numbers and helping verbs, which is what the Detailed view does. The Traditional view folds articles and numbers into adjectives and helping verbs into verbs.
How does the identifier decide a word's part of speech?
Each word is looked up in a built-in English lexicon and checked for endings such as -tion, -ness (nouns), -ous, -ful (adjectives), -ly (adverbs) and -ing or -ed (verb forms). When a word can be more than one part of speech, nearby words decide: after "the" or "my" it is treated as a noun, after "to", "will" or a subject pronoun as a verb. Click a word to see the exact clue.
How accurate is it?
On ordinary sentences most words are labeled correctly, but no automatic tagger is perfect. Words with several uses ("round", "that", "back", "like"), unusual sentence order, poetry and very long sentences can trip it up. Treat the colors as a strong first pass and use your own judgment, which is also good grammar practice.
Why is a word like "running" sometimes a noun?
An -ing verb form can act as a noun, called a gerund ("Running is fun"), as an adjective ("running water"), or as part of a verb ("She is running"). The tool looks at the words around it to choose between these uses.
What is a helping verb?
A helping (auxiliary) verb comes before the main verb to show tense, mood or voice: forms of be, have and do, plus the modal verbs can, could, will, would, shall, should, may, might and must. In "She has finished", "has" is the helping verb and "finished" the main verb. When be, have or do stand alone they are main verbs.
Is my text uploaded anywhere?
No. The tagger is written in JavaScript and runs entirely on your device, so the text you paste stays in your browser. It also works offline once the page has loaded.
Does it work for languages other than English?
No. The word list and the grammar rules are for English only. Text in other languages will mostly be labeled as nouns.
Are all the tools on FreeToolCabin tested for quality and accuracy?
Yes! Every tool on our site undergoes automated Q/A testing in real browser environments to ensure high precision, correct output, and zero errors. If you happen to spot a bug or have a suggestion, please contact us at [email protected] and our team will review it right away.
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