How to make a sentence in English easy ways.

Hi, in this lesson you can learn about sentence structure in English. You learn how to construct all kind of sentence in English. From the simplest possible sentences to long complex sentences which contain many different ideas. To begin a question, what are a simple sentence you can make?

PART ONE

How to Build a Simple Sentence

What does every sentence in English need? Every sentence need a verb. The simplest sentence is an Imperative. Which means when you tell someone to do something. For example

-          Run!

-          Leave!

-          Work!

These are simplest complete sentence you can make in English. They just one word long. Of-course most sentences are longer than this. Most sentences are longer than one word also need a noun before the verb.

The noun is the subject.

Subject + verb.

 With the subject + verb you can make a simple sentences like

-          He runs.

-          She left.

-          They’re working.

You can see the verb can be in different form, past or present, simple or continuous. The verb form does change the structure of the sentence. These are all the same. Subject + verb. Of course these sentences are very interesting. You can’t say much with the short sentence like this. Let add a little more information. Take the sentence

-          He runs…

What can you add after “runs”   to make it longer? You could add an adverb of place.

-          He runs around the park.

You could an adverb of time.

-          He runs every morning.

You could add both.

-          He runs around the park every morning.

You could add an adverb of manner.

-          He runs slowly.

You can that you have many choice but you choices are also limited. In this case you can use different kind of adverbs but there also things you can’t use.

For example you can’t you another verb after “run”, you can’t use adjective. You can’t use noun. This is an important point. Let look at it in more detail.

PART TWO

Complements – What Comes Next?

To build grammatically complete sentence in English. There is one important question.

-          What needs to come next?

(What comes next?)

For example. You saw the sentence

-          He runs.

That the complete sentence. You can put the full stop after “runs” and it correct. It very basic but it correct. What about these?

-          He likes

-          He wants

-          We go

These aren’t complete sentences. Can you explain why not?  They aren’t very simply because they not complete.

Read at the first sentence

-          She likes

She likes…. What?  She has to like something.

-          He wants….what?

What does he wants? You can just want, you have to want something.

-          We go… where?

At this point I want to teach you a word.

-          Complement.

The complement is the thing you add after the verb to make the sentence complete. A complement can have many different forms. It can be a noun, a verb, an adjective or an adverb. This thing can be a single word or phrases. For example when we say noun, we also mean noun phrases. So a “table” is noun and “the wooden table which my grandmother gave me” is also a noun. Both noun refer to one object, one table. For this lesson a noun can be one word or a phrase. Okay let’s practice, Look at the first sentence

-          She likes….what?

How could you finish this? What are the possible compliment? Take pen and paper and write down three ends for the sentence. Try to use different ideas and structures. Ready let’s look at some possible answers. These are just my suggestions of course there are many possibilities.

-          She likes strawberries.

-          She likes swimming.

-          She likes getting up before the sun rises.

-          She likes to listen to music while she works.

You can there is more than one possible complement. You use noun, a gerund with the verb “ing” which act like noun (e.g. strawberries), a gerund phrase (e.g. getting up before sun rises) or and infinitive verb with to (e.g to listen). So you have many choices. However like before you choices are also limited only certain structure are possible.

The idea of compliment isn’t just for the first verb in the sentence, many words needs a complements. For example look at one of these sentences you just saw.

-           She likes getting up before the sun rises.

Technically, you can say.

-          She likes getting up.

It grammatically complete sentence, but you would never say it. Why not? Because it does make any sense, you need more information.

-          She likes getting up ….

When? Why? How?

You need complement after getting up to complete the idea.

-          She likes getting up before…

“Before” also need a complement. You can’t stop there. Before what.

-          She likes getting up before the sun…

These also doesn’t work because it doesn’t make sense. It doesn’t make sense because the “the sun” need a complement. “Before the sun does what?”  

-          She likes getting up before the sun rises.

Okay, finally we have the sentence which is grammatically correct and which communicate meaning. What should you remember from these?

Remember that when you use particular word, you have a limited choice in what kind of word you can use next. To speak or write in clear correct English you don’t just need to know English words. You need to know what can come next. For example with the verb like “like” or “want” it not enough to know the verb. You also need to know whether the verb need the complement and what complements are or aren’t possible. This why it good to learn vocabulary in full phrases and sentences. That you know how to use the word you learn to make sentences you can use in your spoken or written English. Using what you seen up to now you can build many simple English sentences.

Let see how you can add more information and more details to these simple sentences.

PART THREE

Adding Description to Your Sentences

You can information to a simple sentences in two ways. You can add adjectives or adverbs. Let you an example using a sentence we start before but we did finish.

-          He wants …

Actually, you should do some work. Take pen and paper and finish the sentence in three different ways. Start again when you have you answers. Ready? Here are suggestions.

-          He wants to buy a car.

Now let’s add some description using the adjectives and adverbs. Can you see how you can add the adjective to this sentences? You could adjectives before the word “car” like this

-          He wants to by a car.

-          He wants to buy a new car.

-          He wants to buy a second-hand car

-          He wants to buy a bright red car.

What about adverbs? Could add adverbs to these sentences to add some details. There are many possibilities. For example.

-          Apparently, he wants to buy a new car.

-          He wants to buy a second –hand car next month.

-          He wants to buy a bright-red car for his new girlfriend.

  You can see the adverbs can be single word or phrases, adjectives can go before the noun and describe or after some verbs. The verbs are more complicated and they can go in many different position.

However this is the important point. Using the adjectives and adverbs like this doesn’t change whether the sentence is complete or not. If you say

-          He wants to buy a car.

That the complete sentence, you can add adjective and adverb to make it more detail.

-          Apparently, he wants to buy a second-hand car for his new girlfriend.

However, if the sentence is incomplete and you can’t make it complete by adding adjective or adverb.  

-          He wants to buy…

These sentence is incomplete, adding adjectives and adverbs won’t make it complete. So at this point, you can build a simple sentence. Your also  hopefully understand something about complement and why are they important for making a complete sentence and now you can also add this to description to a complete sentence using adjectives and adverbs.

Let’s how you can combine this simple sentences into complex one.

PART FOUR

How to Make Complex Sentences with Independent Clauses.

 Firstly, let’s define some words,

Conjunction

-          Is words which join parts of a sentences together?

Words like and, but, if, either…or, because or which are conjunctions. A complex sentence can contain two or more parts join with conjunction. These parts are called clauses. An Independent clause express a complete idea can stand by itself. A depending clause wouldn’t make sense if it there by itself. Dependent clause depends on an independent clause in the same sentence in order to have meaning.

Don’t worry if this is new, you don’t need to remember everything right. You will see a lot example of these ideas in this section and in the next section. In section you going to learn about the complex sentences with two independent clauses.

Let’s see some examples

-          He runs around the park every morning, so he’s in pretty good shape.

-          She likes strawberries, but she hardly ever eats them.

-          You should write to her and thank her for the present.

These are simple example of the complex sentences. Here is your recipe.

-          Independent clause + conjunction + independent clause.

Generally, you need a coma at the end of the first clause before the conjunction but coma rules are quite flexible in English. So you won’t always need a coma. Look at the first example

-          He runs around the park every morning, so he’s in pretty good shape.

Which word is the conjunction? The conjunction is “so”, you can split this sentence into two full meaningfully sentences. Let’s look one more

-          She likes strawberries but, she hardly ever eats them.

Again, you split this into two fully sentences

1.      She likes strawberries

2.      But, she hardly ever eats them

You might think the second sentence isn’t complete or does make sense by itself. How every you can change “them” to “strawberries”    

-          But, she hardly ever eats strawberries  

Now it’s a complete meaningful sentence but she hardly ever eat strawberries.

You can keep adding conjunctions for as long as you want.

-          She likes strawberries, but she hardly ever eats them, and she doesn’t earn much money so she has to be careful how much she spend on groceries and fresh food is generally more expensive than conned or frozen produce, so…

Of course, just because you can, it doesn’t mean it a good idea, sentences with too many clauses are difficult to follow. So, it’s generally better to limit you complex sentences to maximum three clauses. Now you know how to build a complex sentence using independent clauses. What about dependent clauses.

PART FIVE

How to Make Complex Sentences with Dependent Clauses

Do you remember the definition of the dependent clauses? Dependent clause is the part the sentence which will not make sense by itself. Let’s see an example.

-          She’s taller than I am.

This short sentence has two clauses, can you see where the two clauses start and end which one is dependent. The two clauses are:-

1.      She’s taller…

2.      … than I am.

They linked with conjunction than, the second clause “…than I am” is dependent. It doesn’t make sense by itself.

Let’s see some other ways to build the complex sentences with depending clauses. You can add depending clause with conjunctions like if, because, although, unless or wherever.

For example,

-          If you late, I’ll leave without you.

-          He’s broke because he spent all his money on beer.

-          Although she spends a lot of time at work, she doesn’t get much done.

-          I won’t do it unless you come with me.

-          We can meet wherever you want.

After you change the order of the two clauses if you want so you can say.

-          If you’re late, I’ll leave without you or

-          I’ll leave without you if you’re late.

Notice there is a coma between two clauses if the dependent clause first but not independent clause is fed.

What the difference between these complex sentences and the one you saw in part four? Here you can’t split sentences into two or you but one the two part won’t make sense.

-          If you late,

-          I’ll leave without you.

I’ll leave without isn’t independent clause so it make sense by itself. But the other clause

-          If you late,

Is dependent and it doesn’t make sense by itself. It need something more to make it complete. What other common ways are there to build complex sentences with dependent clauses.

Another common structure is relative’s clauses, using relative pronoun like who, which or what to link two clauses for example.

-          That the guy who shouted at me.

-          I have no idea what going on.

-          They gave us a cake which was make from dried beetroot.

In this the dependent clauses goes after the independent clauses. Let’s review what you have learn in this lesson. You can build a very simple sentence with just a verb.

-          Works!

You can subject and complement to make it simple sentence.

-          She works in a zoo.

You can use adjective and adverb to add descriptions. Apparently, she works in a private zoo.

You make a complex sentences by adding second independent clause with the conjunction.

-          Apparently, she works in a private zoo, so she must know a lot about animals.

You can also make a complex sentence by adding depending clause or even settle about depending again using conjunction to connect them.

-          Apparently, she works in a private zoo, so she must know a lot about animals, which surprises me because as far as I know she studied economics at university, although I guess I could be remembering it wrong.

This is big topic and it will time to learn everything about this point. Study conjunction and how they work it will help you to build a complex sentences which are clear and correct. Relative clauses are another useful topic if you want to improve your sentences grammar. Learn about relative clauses can help you to connect your ideas in complex sentences. It also a good idea to study verb complements and learn what structure you can or can’t use after a verb. Remember that a lot of sentences structure is being able to answer the question “what need to come next?”

I hope this article is useful for you.

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