Grammar Lesson 1 Tips to Improve Your Sentence Structure
Hi, I’m Daniel.
Welcome to Oxford Online English!
In this lesson, you can learn the most important
grammar rule in English.
Of course, you need to know many things to
use grammar correctly in English.
However, there’s one tip that can dramatically
improve your English grammar—especially
in writing.
First, don’t forget to check out our website:
Oxford Online English dot com.
We have many free lessons to help you improve
your English.
There’s also a level test, which can show
you how good your grammar is now.
But, you want to hear the grammar tip, right?
What is it?
Let’s see!
Here’s the basic idea: make sure your sentence
has a subject and a verb, and that you know
what the subject and main verb are.
Every sentence needs a verb, and unless your
sentence is an imperative—meaning that you’re
giving someone a command—then your sentence
needs a subject, too.
Each clause in your sentence should have one
subject and one main verb, and only one subject
and one main verb.
It sounds simple.
Maybe you’re thinking, ‘This is too easy!
I know this already!’
However, we see students make mistakes with
this all the time, especially in writing.
Mistakes with this point are serious, because
they often make it hard to understand what
you want to say.
Even if your meaning is clear, sentences with
this problem are often difficult to read.
In any situation, that’s a problem.
It’s especially serious if you’re taking
an exam, like IELTS.
Let’s look at the most basic point.
Your sentence needs a subject, which should
be a noun or noun phrase, like ‘they’,
‘everybody’, or ‘my maths teacher from
high school’.
Then, you need a main verb, which generally
goes after the subject.
With this, you can make simple sentences like
these: ‘They have a nice house’;
‘Everybody agreed.’
‘My maths teacher from high school was really
good at explaining complicated things.’
After the main verb, you might have a simple
complement, like ‘a nice house’.
You might have nothing at all.
Your sentence might finish after the verb,
like ‘Everybody agreed.’
Or, you might have a longer complement, possibly
including other verbs, as in ‘My math teacher
from high school was really good at explaining
complicated things.’
So, you’re probably still thinking that
this is easy.
And, so far, it is!
Let’s see how it can go wrong.
Look at five sentences:
By the way, these sentences are all real examples
from our students’ writing.
Most of them come from IELTS writing practice.
All these sentences break the basic rule we
mentioned above.
Can you see how?
Pause the video, read the sentences, and try
to find the problems.
Start again when you’re ready.
In the first sentence, there’s no main verb.
‘Will’ is a modal verb, but a modal verb can’t
be a main verb; you need a main verb after
it.
For example, ‘We will go back home next
Friday.’
The second sentence has two subjects: ‘Imposing
higher taxes on fast food’ and ‘it’.
One clause can’t have two subjects.
To correct this sentence, remove ‘it’:
‘Imposing higher taxes on fast food is
a good idea.’
The third sentence has a main verb, but no
subject.
What affects individuals’ lives directly?
This is difficult to correct, because it’s
impossible to know what the writer wanted
to say.
You would need to add a noun before the verb
‘affects’ to make it understandable.
The fourth sentence has a fragment at the
end which includes a subject and a verb.
This means the sentence has too many subjects
and verbs; each clause can only have one subject
and one main verb.
What’s the solution?
There are many possibilities, but the easiest
way to correct this is to break the sentence
into two parts.
You can do this by changing the comma after
‘Alexandria’ to a semicolon.
Finally, what about the fifth sentence?
It’s difficult to understand, right?
Again, it’s difficult to correct this sentence,
because it’s hard to see the writer’s
ideas.
The problem is that this sentence has several
parts with several subjects and verbs, and
it’s not clear what refers to what.
For example, ‘each society’ is a subject,
but then ‘forced medical treatment’ is
also a subject.
Later in the sentence, we have a verb—‘avoid’—and
it isn’t clear which subject goes with it.
On a more practical level, it just isn’t
clear what this sentence is about.
Does the writer want to say something about
‘each society’, or about ‘large sets
of people,’ or about ‘forced medical treatment’?
We don’t know.
This is why subject-verb structure is so important:
if it isn’t clear, it will be hard to understand
what your sentence is about.
Sometimes, this might mean that your ideas
aren’t clear in your mind.
Next, let’s expand this basic rule and see
how you can use it to make a wider range of
sentences.
You heard before that both subjects and verbs
can be words or phrases.
Sometimes, your subject or verb might be a
longer phrase.
This often leads to mistakes, because when
your subject and verb are multiple words,
it’s more difficult to keep track of your
sentence structure.
Let’s do an example together.
Take a sentence you saw before: ‘Everybody
agreed.’
You can make the subject—‘everybody’—into
a phrase.
For example: ‘Everybody who was at the meeting
agreed.’
You can make the verb into a phrase, like
this: ‘Everybody who was at the meeting
agreed to change the office dress code.’
You can make each phrase even longer.
For example: ‘Everybody who was at the board
meeting held last Tuesday evening agreed to
change the existing office dress code to something
more informal.’
Even though we’ve added lots of new words
and ideas, this sentence has the same basic
structure as before.
It still has one subject, and one main verb.
Although we’ve added a complement after
the verb, the verb doesn’t have a direct
object.
We haven’t added anything grammatically
new to the sentence; we’ve simply expanded
the existing parts.
Let’s do one more example of this.
This time, we want you to try!
Here’s a basic sentence: ‘My sister called.’
Can you make this sentence longer by changing
the subject and verb to longer phrases?
For this exercise, there are a couple of rules.
You can’t add a noun after ‘called’,
because that would change the structure.
You also can’t use conjunctions like ‘although’
or ‘because’.
The idea is to keep the basic structure the
same, so that the sentence has one subject
and one verb which doesn’t have a direct
object.
Pause the video and try it now.
How did you do?
Of course, there are many ways to do this.
Let’s look at three possibilities.
‘My sister Mandy called last night.’
‘My sister, who I haven’t spoken to for
ages, called to tell me about her new job.’
You can see that you can do this in a simpler
way, or you can make the sentence much more
complicated, by adding relative clauses, adjectives,
adverbs, and so on.
However, remember the basic idea: all of these
sentences have the same basic structure: one
subject and one main verb.
Let’s move on and talk about one more important
point.
As you heard before, almost all sentences
need a subject.
Only imperatives, like ‘Come here!’ don’t
need a subject.
Interjections, like ‘Wow!’, also don’t
need a subject, but many linguists—including
us—would say that these are not sentences.
However, sometimes there isn’t a clear noun
subject.
In this case, you need to use a word like
‘it’ or ‘there’.
For example: ‘It won’t take long to get
there.’
‘It’s worth going.’
‘There’s a mosquito on your nose.’
‘There have been several developments since
the last time we spoke.’
In these sentences, the words ‘it’ and
‘there’ are empty subjects; they don’t
refer to a specific noun or thing.
You use them only because the sentence needs
a subject.
They don’t add any meaning to the sentence.
So, what’s the difference?
When do you need to use ‘it’, and when
do you need to use ‘there’?
Use ‘it’ to talk about distances and times.
For example: ‘It’s not far to the metro.’
‘How long will it take you to finish everything?’
‘It’s six thirty.’
You often use ‘it’ to talk about the weather,
too.
For example: ‘It’s sunny.’
‘It’ll be cold tomorrow.’
‘It was really wet last month.’
You also use ‘it’ to talk about situations,
and in a number of phrases like ‘it’s
worth…’
For example: ‘It’s safe to walk around
at night here.’
‘It’s good that you could join us.’
‘It’s really cosy in here.’
What about ‘there’?
Use ‘there’ to say that something exists,
or doesn’t exist.
Usually, when you use ‘there’, it’s
the first time you’re mentioning something.
For example: ‘There’s some salad in the
fridge.’
‘There are several reasons why I have to
say ‘no’ to this idea.’
‘There didn’t use to be so many homeless
people here.’
Let’s practise together.
Look at five sentences.
Do you need to add ‘it’ or ‘there’?
Pause the video, and think about your answers.
Ready?
Here they are.
Finally, we have one more thing to show you.
In general, the subject of your sentence goes
immediately before the main verb.
You can see this in the sentences you’ve
already seen in this lesson.
Sometimes, the main verb also has an auxiliary
verb, like ‘have’, ‘has’, ‘do’,
‘does’, ‘will’, ‘can’ and so on.
In positive sentences, the auxiliary verb
and the main verb almost always go together.
For example: ‘They have bought a nice house.’
‘My sister Mandy will call tonight.’
However, there’s one case where the main
verb goes before the subject: questions with
‘be’.
For example: ‘Are you ready?’;
‘Were there many people there?’;
In some cases, the auxiliary verb needs to
come before the subject.
This is most common in questions.
For example: ‘Can you help me?’
‘What time does she arrive?’
‘How many pieces of cake have you had already?’
It’s also possible in certain structures
which are mostly used in formal writing, like
‘At no time did I suspect that he was the
thief.’
At this point, let’s review the most important
points that you should take away from this
lesson.
One: make sure every sentence has a subject
and a main verb in each clause.
Don’t put more than one subject or main
verb in one clause.
Two: if your subject and main verb are longer
phrases, or if you add a lot of adverbs or
subordinate clauses to your sentence, it might
be harder to keep track of the structure.
Before you write a sentence, think about this
question: what are you talking about, and
what are you saying about this thing?
Decide what you’re talking about—the subject—and
what you’re saying about it—the main verb.
Keep these in your head.
Three: study the difference between main verbs
and auxiliary verbs.
Remember that auxiliary verbs can’t generally
be used alone.
Make sure every auxiliary verb has a main
verb attached.
Learn the cases when the auxiliary verb needs
to come before the subject.
If you can follow these simple steps, your
writing will be clearer, better-organised,
and more accurate.
Do you have any tips to help other English
learners improve their grammar?
Please share your suggestions in the comments!
Thanks for watching!
See you next time!