Hi there and welcome back to Learn Academic English in today's video I'm continuing my series
of videos all about English sentences and today I'm going to teach you about the different types
of sentences in English there are five types of sentences that I'll cover in today's short lesson
first let's talk for a moment about why you should learn types of sentences why is it important to
know this information well first when you know the different types of sentences in English it
helps you to add variety to your writing if you need to use English writing for school or
work or other purposes you're going to want to have different types of sentences you
can use that helps your writing to feel more interesting more advanced second it's important
for you to know different types of sentences so that when you take a class or some other
situation where you get feedback on your English if a person says to you, “Try to use more complex
sentences instead of compound sentences,” then you will know what that person is talking about
finally knowing different types of sentences can just help you to understand the structure of the
language which allows you to analyze English more when you read or when you write it just gives you
an extra level of knowledge that can help you to feel comfortable with the language before we get
into those five types of sentences I'd like to remind you to please give this video a Like if
you find it helpful leave a comment and make sure that you're subscribed if you want more lessons
like this one and you can also watch the other videos in my playlist about English sentences
to learn more so first let's talk about a couple of important terms we want to know before we begin
what a subject a verb and a clause are so the subject is the person or thing in the
sentence that does the action of the verb in English the subject almost always like 99%
of the time comes before the verb in some other languages the subject comes after
or it doesn't matter but in English the subject always comes before the verb the verb is the
action or sometimes we call it a state that shows what is happening finally a clause a clause is a
group of words that includes a subject and a verb and a clause can also be a sentence so we'll look
at a couple types of clauses in today's video but if you want to know more about that you can watch
my video about dependent and independent clauses but in order to understand sentences in English
you need to know what these three things are and I'll show you when we go through the examples
so the first type of sentence that you should know in English is called a simple sentence and
it's called a simple sentence because it's just one clause and when you look at a simple sentence
you're going to notice that we're going to have subject and verb and it's going to be one subject
verb group sometimes we can have two subjects and one verb but they go together they are a group
so for example climate change is the biggest challenge of our time so all of today's
examples are going to be about climate change and you'll see that in this sentence climate change
is the subject and the verb is is if I wanted to make a simple sentence that has two subjects
I might say climate change and infectious diseases are the biggest challenges of our time
so in that case I would have two subjects and one verb that go together again it's a simple sentence
because it has one subject verb group another type of simple sentence is what we call an imperative
an imperative is when I make a command I tell you to do something for example take
action against climate change now so you might ask yourself well what's the subject this is the verb
what's the subject the subject is that the word you but it's hiding it's hidden okay now one thing
I wanted to mention before we move on is that you might think to yourself well a simple sentence if
it's simple it must be short and it's probably not good well some simple sentences can actually be
quite long because we can add other things to the sentence we can add an introductory phrase like
in my opinion we can add adverbs or other words that show time and place the other thing is
that even though a simple sentence is usually shorter than other sentences it's a very good
type of sentence it's very clear and you're going to want to use them in your writing you don't want
to use them all the time but don't forget about them okay let's move on to type number two which
is compound and a compound sentence is going to have joined two independent clauses together
with one of the fanboys fanboys are the same thing as coordinating conjunctions the words for and nor
but or yet and so and I have a whole video just about those conjunctions and how to make sentences
with them so for example we have countries have proposed changes to combat climate change
but it is not enough so this sentence has two parts it has the first independent clause with
subject and verb and then we have our comma one of the fanboys which is a coordinating conjunction
and then the second clause that has a subject and verb that's a compound sentence now one thing I
wanted to show you is that one thing we can do is that we can continue to build on this sentence if
we want to we can add another independent clause if we want to so look what we can do we can
take this same sentence countries have proposed changes to climate change to combat climate change
but it is not enough we can make this a comma and then we could say so greater action is necessary
so now we have three clauses all joined with fanboys and that's an option too
okay let's move on to type number three complex a complex sentence has a dependent clause
and an independent clause joined together now if you watched my video about dependent clauses
and I have a second video about subordinating conjunctions you know that these are sentences
that can be with words like since after when unless because if the first clause here
a dependent clause is going to start with one of those subordinating conjunctions for example
because climate change affects quality of life it is crucial to act immediately so what do we
have here we have the subordinating conjunction because then we have our subject climate change
we have the verb effects then we have in our second clause the subject it and the verb is
notice that it follows the formula because we have the dependent clause with the conjunction first
and then we have a comma and then we have our second clause
now the formula also tells us that we can flip the order of these and we can put the independent
clause first for example we would flip them and say it is crucial to act immediately because
climate change affects quality of life in that case there is no comma in the middle
okay another type of complex sentence has a also a dependent clause but it's a relative clause
or an adjective clause for example climate change which is the greatest challenge of our time needs
to be addressed immediately so what do we have here well we have our subject climate change and
then what's the verb that goes with the subject it's after this clause here it's right here needs
but we have a relative clause and it describes climate change it gives more information about
climate change and we can put relative clauses in different places in the sentence but when
you have an independent clause and a relative clause it's another type of complex sentence
okay and then the last one that we're going to look at here is when we have a noun clause for
example countries have admitted that now is the time to act so here we have our subject countries
we have our verb have admitted and then we have this second part of the sentence this is a noun
clause noun clauses always start with that and they answered the question what
countries have admitted something what what did they admit countries have admitted
that now is the time to act so this is taking the place of a noun okay let's look at two more
types of sentences let's look at type number four compound complex as the name implies a
compound complex sentence combines both a compound and a complex sentence together
so remember that a compound sentence is going to join two independent clauses with a coordinating
conjunction like and or but a complex sentence joins a dependent clause and an independent clause
and those dependent clauses start with a word like because after or since so if you would
take a look at this sentence and because it combines the two it's going to be quite long
because climate change affects quality of life it is crucial to address the issue but
some leaders are not on board okay so if we look at the first part we have the word because that's
a subordinating conjunction this is going to be a dependent clause we're going to have the
subject climate change and the verb effects okay that's the first part of the sentence then we have
a comma and then we have the next clause which is going to be an independent clause we always
join a dependent clause with an independent clause subject verb then we have our third part and we're
gonna join this is an independent clause we're gonna join another independent clause and that's
going to make the compound part of the sentence so dependent clause with subordinating conjunction
that's complex and then joining with a third clause these two clauses are joined together with
the word but that's compound and in this last one we have the subject some leaders and the verb are
so again these sentences are quite long but they are totally possible and if they're done correctly
they're another good way to add variety to your writing okay finally the last one the last one
is a strange type of sentence it's one that we often ignore or forget about but they are fun
and they are actually quite common but they are a little strange so this one is what's called
correlative comparatives and you don't really need to remember the name but you should know
these because it's like the more blah blah the more blah blah and the reason that I said that
they're strange is that often they don't even have a verb for example the bigger the risk the greater
the reward this type of sentence is always going to join two comparatives so it could be the bigger
the smaller or the more the more or the bigger the more they're always going to be two comparatives
and you're going to join them with a comma as you can see in this first one there are no verbs here
the bigger the risk the greater the reward now the meaning here is like cause effect
if we have this first part it causes this effect okay or the more you work the less
time you have so here's a correlative comparative that does have verbs but again we have to have
the comparative in both parts and it means that as you work more the effect is you have less time
so I hope that this video about types of sentences will help you to feel more comfortable and
confident in your English and will help you to think about how you can use more variety
in sentences in your writing let me know if you have questions as always I will leave
a handout in the description box below and a question that you can answer to help you practice
I hope to see you back here next time take care and see you soon!