Now, Bronsted-Lowry acids and bases occur in what we call conjugate pairs. We're going to say when a base accepts a proton, remember proton is H+, it transforms into a conjugate acid. So basically to create a conjugate acid we have to add an H+ to a base.
Here we have methyl amine. Here I've drawn lone pairs on the nitrogen. It possesses those lone pairs because when methylamine gained an H+, it goes to the nitrogen carbons already making all the bonds it can make. So by accepting this H+, we get now CH3NH3+. This is methyl ammonium ion. This represents the conjugate acid.
Now, when an acid donates a proton, it transforms into a conjugate base. So basically, when you're removing H+ from an acid, you create a conjugate base. Here we have nitric acid. We're going to remove an H+ from it, and when we do that, we're going to create the nitrate ion. The nitrate ion is the conjugate base of my nitric acid, right.
So just keep this in mind when we're talking about Bronsted-Lowry acid definitions of acids and bases. We're going to say here if you are adding an H+ to a base, you create a conjugate acid. If you're removing an H+ from an acid, you're creating a conjugate base.
