Symbols on Keyboards Learn English Writing

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hi everybody my name is alicia in this

lesson i’m going to talk about

vocabulary words

for symbols on english keyboards i’m

also going to give an example sentence

that uses each of these vocabulary words

so

let’s get started let’s begin on this

side

of the whiteboard the first symbol i

want to talk about is the symbol

it’s a dot yes this dot is not

in the middle of the line the dot

appears here

so this is called a period a period

a period comes in this position

here as in use a period at the

end of a sentence so in

english writing we place the period this

dot mark

here you’ll find this on english

keyboards everywhere

this is how we use the period another

very common mark is the comma the comma

so commas are used in the middle of

sentences usually

or they might come near the beginning of

a sentence

we use a comma before a coordinating

conjunction so if you want to know more

about exactly when to use commas

please search our english class 101

youtube channel or our website

to find the video about how to use

commas

so when a comma appears in a sentence it

looks like

this usually so here this is very very

easy to see

i think but in the middle of a sentence

a comma appears like this so here i

would not

it’s not correct to use a comma right

here but in a sentence

it looks like this okay let’s move on to

the next word

the next word is colon colon so

these two dots one on top of another

this mark is called a colon a colon

so use a colon before a list

for example so if i want to make a list

i would make my colon like this and then

i list

item one item two item three for example

this is one way to use

a colon a colon this is the mark for it

so again it’s not correct i haven’t made

this sentence to be

a list but that’s how it would look in

writing

so we use colon sometimes before lists

okay the next mark here is very very

similar to the colon

this is a dot and under it it looks like

this comma

this is called a semicolon a

semicolon so we use a semicolon

to connect independent clauses so

independent clauses

are two like individual ideas

so this is a full sentence a full idea

and another full sentence a complete

idea

we can connect those with semicolons for

example

use a semicolon to connect independent

clauses

semicolon use a period

blah blah blah as i’ve said up here use

a period at the end of a sentence

so if i want to connect this idea and

this idea

together i can do that with a semicolon

and i don’t need to use a coordinating

conjunction

so again these are some punctuation

related rules

for more information about that please

take a look at the other videos on our

channel

so this is a semicolon semicolon

okay let’s move on to the next one the

next mark

this mark looks just like the comma i

know but the positioning of this mark

is important this mark is called an

apostrophe

apostrophe this word is pronounced

apostrophe

so in a sentence we would say never use

an apostrophe to make a word plural

never use an apostrophe to make a word

plural so we use apostrophes to show

possession

so for example if i want to say

something belongs to

me or someone wants to say something

belongs to me

i use an apostrophe before the s there

this shows it’s something belonging to

alicia

the apostrophe looks like this just a

quick dash a quick mark

between the last letter of my name

and an s so this shows possession

something belongs to me

we use an apostrophe to show possession

so it looks like this on a keyboard the

mark may look like this

but it appears above the letters please

note that a comma

appears on the line where the letters

rest kind of like where the comma or i’m

sorry where the period

appears a comma appears there an

apostrophe

appears above the letters okay let’s

move on to our next

mark them the next mark this is a mark

that comes in a

pair that means there’s a set these are

called

quotation marks quotation marks

so use quotation marks to show

dialogue dialogue is for example

when you’re reading a story and

character a

says something character b says

something

we mark the character’s speech with

quotation marks

so when the character begins speaking

we use these open quotation marks

when the character finishes speaking we

use these closed quotation marks

so this helps the reader understand

where

the speech starts and where the speech

stops so this makes reading much easier

these are called quotation marks

quotation marks

to be very specific these are double

quotation marks you can see there are

two lines here when you’re making in

some specific situations you’re making

a like a quotation inside a quotation

this is a very specific situation when

you do that you’ll use

single quotation marks these look like

apostrophes a little bit

so again that’s for very specific

situations in most cases you only need

to use

the regular double quotation marks okay

let’s move on then to the next list of

items the next

list is starts here with this hyphen

hyphen so this is a very short mark a

very short horizontal

dash please keep in mind there are a

couple of other dashes that we use

in english writing but you don’t find

those

typically on keyboards or they’re not as

commonly used

from the keyboard a hyphen however is on

the keyboard

we use hyphens to connect words so

connect words with a hyphen so

in a word or phrase like free for all

we connect free for and all together

with

hyphens hyphens come between the words

so there are some rules for when to use

hyphens but the mark

for today’s lesson this mark is called a

hyphen a hyphen

okay let’s go to the next one the next

word is

slash slash you may see this

direction you may see the other

direction to a slash in the other

direction

most commonly we see the slash in this

direction

so a slash is commonly used online

slashes are common in url so

urls those are like the website names

the names that we type in

to go to websites so slashes are common

in urls

it’s also very common in programming too

okay our next vocabulary word again it’s

a pair

these things are called parentheses

parentheses so as i talked about with

quotation marks

when we use parentheses we need to use

them

in a pair this one just as with

quotation marks

this one that’s shaped like this is

called the open parentheses

this is used when we begin sharing some

extra information

this one is called the closed

parentheses mark the closed parentheses

we use this when we

finish sharing extra information so as i

said

we use parentheses to give extra

information

so maybe it’s not the most important

point but we want to share a little bit

of extra information in our sentence

we can put parentheses around that

information that shows that it’s just

kind of extra

so open parentheses closed parentheses

these are very commonly used

um and you can find them easily on most

i think english

keyboards okay let’s go to the next mark

this mark is called ampersand ampersand

you might i suppose here people call it

the and mark

because we use an ampersand in place of

and so if you want to describe

something that is like a law firm or an

organization and there’s an and in the

title of that

in many cases like to save space you’ll

see

this used in place of and so for example

company a and company b instead of

writing

and in the middle they might use

ampersand

so this is up to kind of the company or

the person’s choice

or sometimes it’s just to save space but

this is called

an ampersand okay onward to the next

mark this mark has become very important

with the rise of social media we call

this at

or the at mark so we use the at mark

in email addresses so for example

your name at gmail.com so we use

at to describe this mark we also use

this

in social media handles for our

usernames on social media

before our username we use the app mark

so that means that’s how you can reach

that person

this has also interestingly become a

verb as in

at me your information or please don’t

at me which means like reply or don’t

tag me in something

so we use at or at mark to describe this

okay one more in this part of the list

this mark here this is called the

pound sign or the number sign

so we use the pound sign before

a phone number this is very commonly

used before a phone number

so you might see it or you would have

seen it in like an old

phone book for example however i should

note

that this is also read these days as

hashtag so when you see this in social

media posts especially

on like instagram or twitter when you

see

this mark plus a word so for example

this mark

plus english it should be read as

hashtag

english so in that case we do not read

it as pound sign or number sign

english it’s read as hashtag so those

are tags

for the thing that you are sharing

that’s a different use of it so in

today’s

english and today’s very internet driven

vocabulary we use hashtag to

mention or to describe this mark okay

let’s go to the last list the last part

of the list rather

this is called an exclamation point an

exclamation point

or an exclamation mark

end the sentence with an exclamation

point to show

surprise so when we end a sentence

with this mark it means we should read

it with like a more

excited voice or we should read it with

an

exclamation so for example when i read

this sentence i could use that excited

tone of voice like end a sentence with

an exclamation point to show surprise

that’s the feeling of using an

exclamation point

so you might see this used a lot on

social media to show surprise or to show

shock or maybe if someone is scared they

would use an

exclamation point to describe that okay

another very important mark is the

question mark the question mark

in english we end questions with a

question mark we do not

begin questions with any kind of

question mark

the question mark is at the end of the

sentence only

end a question with a question mark

okay the next symbol is this this star

symbol this is called an asterisk

an asterisk so it’s quite difficult to

say this word even for native speakers

asterisk some people might call it a

star that’s okay

but this is called an asterisk so we use

asterisks

sometimes for notes so you might see

this very small mark

at the end of a sentence or maybe at the

end of a word

especially in a book we don’t see this

so much in like social media

but you might see this at the end of a

sentence or at the end of a word

you see this little star mark this

asterisk mark

and often times at the bottom of the

page

or at the end of the chapter there’s a

note

about that sentence or about that word

so

we match this asterisk to an asterisk at

a different place on the page that has

more information

in a short note so this is a common way

that we use asterisks in english writing

okay the next two are like math related

symbols

this mark we usually just call it the

plus

plus we might call it like the plus sign

or the plus

mark but in most cases we just say

plus when we see this symbol plus so

use plus for more specific searches

so i wanted to include this because this

is a really helpful thing that you can

use

when you’re doing a google search for

information same thing with

quotation marks so if for example you

want to search for something specific

let’s say for example you want to know

how to find a lesson about

present perfect tense and you want it to

be a lesson about english

present perfect tense if you want to

look for this on google specifically you

can put in quotation marks

present perfect tense so that means you

want to search for this

phrase exactly and you can include the

plus mark

to show you want to include something

else so

present perfect tense this phrase plus

maybe

english or another phrase or maybe

advanced english

for example so using a plus can help you

to make more specific searches so you

want your search results

to be something that’s about present

perfect tense and

advanced english so using plus can help

you do that making

your searches a little bit more specific

of course you can also use this

in math plus okay next one as i said

also a math related mark this is the

equals mark or just equals in most cases

we read this as

equals equals so we use the equals mark

in

math we show the solution to something

or like the end result of something with

the equals

mark so sometimes we don’t always use

just

math with this like for example in some

social media posts

people might describe their day and say

for example

friends plus sunshine plus

delicious food equals great day

so it’s kind of like a math situation

but we use plus and equals

to show these things together equals or

has the result

of something so you may see this used

in social media a lot okay

the last item for this lesson is this

so again this is another pair these are

called

brackets brackets so you can find these

on english keyboards yes perhaps from

this list

they are the least commonly used we use

brackets for extra information

inside parentheses so i talked about

parentheses here we use parentheses

to give extra information but sometimes

it’s not so common sometimes inside the

parentheses

we want to give even more extra

information

to do that we use brackets inside the

parentheses

so we need to clearly show like the

hierarchy so this is the first level

extra information

second level extra information is with

brackets

brackets so again we have this open

bracket and

a closed bracket we need to use these in

pairs so brackets go inside parentheses

this is one way to use this okay so

this is an introduction to some i think

very

uh useful everyday vocabulary

these are all very common fairly common

maybe this is the least common as i said

these are all common symbols that we use

pretty much

every day when we’re using the computer

when we are

emailing people when we are using social

media and so on

these are also things you can notice as

you are reading

books so the rules that i talked about

in this lesson

are also applied to books sometimes the

rules

are a little bit different depending on

if the thing you’re reading

is like a magazine or a newspaper some

different types of writing follow

slightly different rules

but in general this is a fairly good

guideline

for how you can use these symbols as

well and

the vocabulary words for them the names

of these symbols

so i hope that this was helpful for you

of course if there are other symbols

that you want to know more about

or if you have any other questions about

english keyboards please feel free to

let us know in the comment section of

this video

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thanks very much for watching this

lesson and i will see you again soon

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