What the song is about
The song walks through the English alphabet. Each letter is named and followed by one or two simple words that start with it, like
A. Apple. Animal. or
M. Mouse. Moon. It opens by inviting you to learn, and it ends by counting the letters: there are
twenty-six in English.
Useful words
Most words are
nouns for things a child sees every day:
- Animals: animal, bear, cat, dog, elephant, fish, lion, mouse, zebra
- Home and things: door, house, key, pencil, window, umbrella
- Nature: flower, island, moon, river, star, sun, tree, water
- Food and drink: apple, egg, juice, orange, ice
- Colors: blue, green, red, yellow (orange is also a color)
Some words are other parts of speech:
- Adjectives: happy, quiet
- Verbs: jump, open
- A preposition: under
- An adverb: very
- An answer word: yes
Letters and sounds
The letter name and the sound at the start of a word are not always the same:
- C sounds like /k/ in cat but like /s/ in city.
- U in umbrella and under sounds like the "u" in up, not like the letter name "you".
- X has only one word, X-ray. Very few English words start with X, and X-ray begins with the letter name, "ex".
- Q is almost always followed by u: queen, quiet.
Grammar
- Let's + verb makes a friendly suggestion: Let's learn the letters. (Let's = let us)
- Plurals add -s: letter → letters, word → words.
- Your ABC means "the alphabet". Now you know your ABC is a common, fixed phrase.
- Lines like Twenty-six letters. So many words. have no verb. That is normal in song lyrics and lists, but in a full sentence you would say There are twenty-six letters.
