Hey, everyone, welcome to another English grammar lesson. Today we're going to be covering
subject-verb agreement.
So, what exactly is subject-verb agreement? Well, basically, in
every sentence, you have a subject, and you have a verb. And in order for your sentence
to make sense, your subject and your verb have to sort of "match up"—they have to
agree. And I think the easiest way I can explain that is just by showing you. So here is a
sentence that does not have subject-verb agreement. "She like coffee." Now, the subject of my
sentence is "she," and the verb of my sentence is "like." But there's something wrong here.
Because when you only have one person, you should be saying the word "likes"—with an
"s." One person likes something. So to make this sentence correct—to give this sentence
proper "subject-verb agreement," we would have to change like to likes. She likes coffee.
Let's look at another one: "The bugs crawls on the table." Okay, so what is our subject
here? Who or what are we talking about? “Bugs,” right? “Bugs” is our subject. And what
about our verb? What word tells what the bug is or is doing. “Crawls,” right? “Crawls”
is the verb. But it doesn't make sense to say "the bugs crawls," because "crawls" is
singular—like one thing crawls. One baby crawls. One soldier crawls. But when you have
multiple of something, they don’t crawls; they crawl. So you wouldn't say "the bugs
crawls"; you would say "the bugs crawl." Okay, one more easy one, and then we're going to
kick it up a notch… "She sit on the throne." Subject is... "she." Verb is... "sit." But
“she” is one person, and you wouldn't say one person sit on the throne; you would
say one person "sits" on the throne. So, “she sits.” Okay, so not every one of your sentences
is going to be that easy. Some of them will be a little trickier. Let's take a look at
this: "The two bottles of water is empty" or “The two bottles of water are empty”?
Now, whenever you see an "of" phrase—"of this," "of that"—that’s what we call a
prepositional phrase, and prepositional phrases are basically filler; they do not contain
the main subject of your sentence. So, for me, after years, and years of studying this,
my brain sort of knows that, whenever I see an "of phrase," I just sort of forget it;
I just kind of pass right over it. So, if you do that with this sentence, and you kind
of forget about the "of water" phrase, the sentence actually becomes very easy: “two
bottles are empty.” So, "The two bottles of water are empty." Let's do a couple more
like that… "My collection of poems is about to be published” or “My collection of
poems are about to be published”? Okay, again, we have this "prepositional phrase"
that starts with "of." So, that should cue us in to the fact that we have some extra
fluff—some extra filler going on here. And what do we do with that stuff? We ignore it.
So, if we ignore that part—that "of poems" part, we have "My collection is about to be
published." My collection “is”… Couple more… "The men at the bank is very nice"
or “The men at the bank are very nice”? But wait a minute; I don't see an "of phrase"
here. Well, guess what? Not all of these "prepositional phrases"—these extra, filler phrases begin
with the word "of." It might be "at"; it might be "in"; it might be "on”; it might be “by.”
There are dozens and dozens of prepositions out there, and I would encourage you to go
look some of them up on your own some time, but regardless, this "at the bank" phrase
is one of those phrases: It is extra. It is filler. Our real sentence here is "The men
are very nice." And that's what I should have: “The men at the bank are very nice.” Last
one: “The girl by the flowers looks lonely” or “The girl by the flowers look lonely”?
This is what I’m saying. Just like last one, we have a filler phrase here: “by the
flowers.” If we ignore that for a minute, we can find our real sentence—and we would
see “The girl looks lonely.” “The girl by the flowers looks lonely.” Cool! Well,
whether you came here for a refresher or are just now learning this stuff for the first
time, I hope this video helped. Be sure to check out the free practice down in the description,
and—uh—we’ll see you next time. Thanks.