Auld Lang Syne & Grammar

Auld Lang Syne,
Helping Verbs, Linking Verbs, & Prepositions

Do you listen to Auld Lang Syne when you say farewell to one year and welcome the next? I find the melody particularly enchanting.

Setting words to music is a great way to aid memorization, and when you're learning grammar, there are a few things that are helpful to memorize.

Today, I'll show you how you can use the melody of Auld Lang Syne to memorize the helping verbs, linking verbs, and prepositions.

Below, you'll find "lyrics" for each of those topics along with an instrumental video of the song. Play the videos and sing along with the lyrics given. I tried to organize the words so that the syllables matched the song. Happy singing!

Helping Verb Lyrics

Start singing be with the first note that he plays. That means you'll start at 0:01, and you'll finish these lyrics at 0:29. You can then repeat them with the next part of the song if you'd like.

be, am, is, are,

was, were, been, being,

have, has, had, could, should,

would, may, might, must, shall, can, will, do,

did, does, having

Helping verbs "help" the main verb in a sentence. You can read more about them and listen to me sing a different version of the helping verb song here.

Linking Verb Lyrics

Start singing be with the first note that he plays. That means that you'll start at 0:06, and you'll finish these lyrics at 0:27. You can then repeat them with the next part of the song.

be, am, is, are,

was, were, been, being,

appear, become, feel, grow,

look, seem, remain, smell, sound, stay, taste,

turn--Those are the linking verbs.

Linking verbs link the subject of a sentence with a noun that renames it or an adjective that describes it. You can read more about linking verbs here.

Preposition Lyrics

Start singing above with the first note of the song. That means you'll start at 0:00, you'll finish the first "verse" with in at 0:24. You'll start the next verse with inside at 0:25, and you'll finish it with without at 0:50.

above, across, after, at,

around, before, behind,

below, beside, between, by,

down, during, for, from, in,

inside, including, onto, of,

off, on, out, past, through, to,

till, toward, up, underneath,

upon, within, without

Prepositions have a complicated definition! You can read about them and listen to me sing a different preposition song here.

Warning

Memorization has its place in the learning process, but it will only help if you're also developing a deeper understanding of these concepts. If you'd like to see how I teach grammar, you can view the topics I cover and the order I cover them in here.

P.S. I want to give a shout out to Marie V., who sparked the idea for this post. She used our Get Smart Grammar Program with her daughter, and she reached out to me to let me know that they use Auld Lang Syne to sing the helping verbs. Thanks, Marie!

If you'd like to teach or learn grammar the easy way—with sentence diagrams—check out our Get Smart Grammar Program.

It starts from the very beginning and teaches you grammar and sentence diagramming in easy, bite-size lessons.