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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