Hi everyone. I'm Jennifer from English with Jennifer. It won't surprise you
to know that I believe everyone should know at least a little bit of grammar.
Grammar is all about patterns, and following the usual patterns helps us have clear communication.
What's the difference between a word and a phrase? A word is a single piece of language:
cat, girl, sing, singing, beautiful, beautifully, to, from, here.
A phrase is a group of two or more words: a beautiful girl,
sing beautifully.
for me.
Phrases aren't complete ideas. They don't have both a subject and a verb.
Sometimes we speak in phrases if the rest is understood. What do you see? A pretty cat.
There are different kinds of phrases. We can have a noun phrase,
a verb phrase,
a prepositional phrase,
an infinitive phrase,
a gerund phrase.
There are other kinds of phrases, but remember that no phrase is a complete idea.
A clause is a group of words with a subject and a verb. Clauses can be short or long:
The girls sang.
Songs entertain us.
Birds are common pets in many countries around the world.
Inside a clause, you may find a number of phrases.
Some clauses can stand alone. We call them independent clauses. An independent clause
is a simple sentence. Other clauses are dependent clauses.
We have to join these dependent clauses with an independent clause to form a complete sentence.
If you don't know what to do with this, I can show you.
Try two short quizzes. Here's the first. Can you identify the phrases and the clauses?
Here are the phrases.
And here are the clauses. Notice how the clauses each have a subject and a verb.
Here's the second quiz. Look at four clauses.
Which of them are independent clauses Which of them can stand alone as a complete sentence?
A and D are independent clauses. They can stand alone as complete sentences.
It's a traditional Chinese dance. I wanted to learn.
B and C are dependent clauses. These are adverb clauses.
They have to join with independent clauses to form a complete sentence.
That's all for now. I hope this was helpful. Please like the video.
As always, thanks for watching and happy studies!
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