Compound Sentences - EnglishClass101

Lesson Transcript

Hi, everybody! My name is Alisha. In this lesson, I’m going to talk about compound sentences. Let’s get started! Okay.

First, what is a compound sentence?

This is the first thing that I want to look at in this lesson. A compound sentence is a sentence made from 2 simple sentences connected with a coordinating conjugation. So again, a compound sentence is a sentence made from 2 simple sentences connected with a coordinating conjunction. What does that mean?

So let’s break down these parts of this definition and then we’ll practice making some compound sentences. So, a compound sentence is a great way to level up your sentence structure. Because there are two simple sentences inside a compound sentence, you can create longer sentences with more information and this helps to give your writing and your speaking a different kind of rhythm. So, let’s break down this definition and see what we need to make a compound sentence, okay?

So, first, we have a compound sentence is made from 2 simple sentences. So first, let’s talk about what a simple sentence is.

What is a simple sentence? Here.

So, a simple sentence is a sentence with a subject and a verb. A simple sentence can also be called an independent clause. A sentence is independent because it needs no other information. So, a simple sentence is the most basic type of sentence in English. So again, there’s just a subject like “I” or “you” or “he” or “she” (subject) and a verb, so “go” or “went” or “eat” and so on. So, the most basic type of sentence.

This part mentions independent clauses. So, an independent clause is a clause that doesn’t need any other information, it can stand alone. That’s why it’s called an independent clause. So, a simple sentence is an example of an independent clause. So, we can use both expressions to refer to the same thing. Simple sentence and an independent clause have the same grammatical idea between them.

So, let’s look at some very, very simple examples of simple sentences.

So, here is the most simple one.

“I slept.”

It’s just the subject and a verb.

“I slept.”

Here is my subject. Here is my verb in past tense, “slept.” So, this is a super, super basic simple sentence.

Okay, let’s look at one, a little bit more complex.

“He ate breakfast.”

Subject and my verb are both right here. In this case, we have an object.

What did he eat? He ate breakfast.

So, these are both examples of simple sentences. They have a subject and the verb.

Okay, another one:

“They watched a movie.”

So, again, subject and verb in the sentence. It doesn’t need any other information. It can stand by itself and we understand the information.

Okay, let’s make some that are a little bit longer now.

So, “The weather is cold and rainy today.”

“The weather is cold and rainy today.”

So again, we have our subject (the weather) and then we have our verb (is), in this case, so a be verb. And then we have a couple of adjectives (cold and rainy today). These describe our subject. But this is still considered a simple sentence. It’s just with a subject and a verb. That’s all it has, okay.

And finally, one more:

“Her car made a strange noise!”

So, subject (her car), (made) is our verb, a strange noise, okay.

So, a simple sentence just means these two items, subject and verb in order to be complete. This can be independent, right? It stands by itself. We don’t need any other information to understand the sentence, okay?

So, we need two of these to create a compound sentence. So, that’s why we’re talking about simple sentences. We need two of these together with a coordinating conjunction, a coordinating conjunction. This is the next part for this lesson.

What is a coordinating conjunction? So, a coordinating conjunction is a word that joins words or phrases of the same grammatical level. The same grammatical level, so what does that mean? So this means that we put together or we join, we join words and we join phrases of the same like grammatical type.

So, for example, we can use these words, these coordinating conjunctions to join two simple sentences. So, they’re the same grammatical level, right? Simple sentence and simple sentence. They are the same, so we can join them with these words. So, coordinating conjunctions are; and, but, or, for, so, nor, and yet. So we can use these words to join simple sentences together, okay?

So, of course, each of these different coordinating conjunctions gives us a different meaning. So, “and” is like adding information.

“But” is showing the opposite of something.

“Or” expresses two sides to something, two options.

“For” is kind of a formal way to express a reason for something.

“So” expresses cause and effect. We use it to show cause and effect between two ideas.

“Nor” is not so commonly used in everyday speech, in American English today, but it means “not that other option.”

And finally, “yet,” yet. You can think of “yet” as something like “however” or “even though,” okay?

So, coordinating conjunctions are used to join two simple sentences. These are the pieces of a compound sentence. So, we need to know about both of these in order to create one of these.

So, let’s use this information to create some compound sentences. So, that means sentences, again, with two simple sentences and a coordinating conjunction. Let’s see what this looks like.

So, here are examples.

First: “I slept, but my brother stayed up.”

“I slept, but my brother stayed up.”

Here, “I slept” is our simple sentence that we started with earlier, “I slept.” Subject - verb.

Then, we have a coordinating conjunction right here, “but” in this case. So, “but” is here. It’s connecting the two ideas. My brother stayed up. My brother stayed up. So, this part is also a simple sentence, “My brother stayed up.” We have a subject (my brother) and the verb (to staying up). “My brother stayed up.” So, we have two simple sentences; I slept, my brother stayed up, and our coordinating conjunction connects the two, okay?

Let’s look at another example.

“He ate breakfast, and she read the newspaper.”

So, we have this simple sentence, “He ate breakfast” and we have our coordinating conjunction, in this case “and” followed by this simple sentence, “She read the newspaper.” “She read the newspaper” is also a simple sentence. Subject (she) and the verb (read). So, we have these two ideas (simple sentences) joined by a coordinating conjunction.

“He ate breakfast and she read the newspaper.”

So, another thing to keep in mind, especially when you’re writing is about this mark right here, this comma. So, when you make a compound sentence like this and you have a simple sentence on this side and a simple sentence on this side like this, your subject is here, you can see the subject in both parts, right? So both simple sentences include that subject, use a comma. So when you have two simple sentences that are both complete sentences, you can use them together and connect them with a comma in this way, okay?

Let’s look at another example that follows this rule as well. So, the next one:

“They watched a movie, and we played video games.”

So, “They watched a movie,” same as this example sentence here is one item, and “We played video games,” so two groups.

“They watched a movie.”

“We played video games.”

So, here, we have “they” and “we,” so our subjects, they are different here. And we have this comma before “and” as well too. So you can see, when the two sentences stand alone like this, “We play video games,” “They watched a movie,” we can connect and then we add this comma here before the coordinating conjunction, okay?

Let’s go to another ones from the little bit longer.

“The weather is cold and rainy today, so I don’t want to go outside!”

“The weather is cold and rainy today, so I don’t wanna go outside!”

Okay. So here, we have the same example sentence, “The weather is cold and rainy today,” and the next part is this “so,” so. So, I mentioned, we use “so” to show cause and effect. So, in this case, the weather is cold and rainy today. That’s the cause. The effect is I don’t want to go outside. I don’t want to go outside.

So, here we have a negative, yeah? “I don’t want to go outside.” This follows the same rule, the same compound sentence rule, the same simple sentence rule. “I don’t want to go outside” is still an independent clause, right? We don’t need any other information to understand.

“I don’t want to go outside.” We connected it with “so” and our comma is over here, before the coordinating conjunction, okay?

Let’s look at the very last example here. So…

“Her car made a strange noise…”

“Her car made a strange noise, yet she didn’t seem worried.”

So, we’ve got “yet” here, which again means like even though or despite that. So, our first simple sentence is “Her car made a strange noise,” which we saw earlier. Simple sentence here. Then, “She didn’t seem worried.” She didn’t seem worried. So again, it’s a negative, like we had in the previous example, but it follows the same rule as a simple sentence, subject and verb, right? She didn’t seem worried. So, we connect the two with our coordinating conjunction and our comma, okay?

So, this is how we make compound sentences. If you’re having trouble making longer sentences and including more ideas inside one sentence, this is a great way to start practicing putting your ideas together. Just remember that you need these two parts to create a compound sentence. Two simple sentences plus a coordinating conjunction, and when you do this, if you’re writing this, make sure that if you have your subject in both parts that you connect and you use a comma before your coordinating conjunction.

So, compound sentences are a great way, of course, to improve your writing and to make sure that you have kind of interesting rhythms in your speech as well. It’s important to use a mix as well. If you always use compound sentences, you might find that you have kind of an unnatural rhythm in your speech or in your writing, so you can use a mix of simple sentences, compound sentences, and other sentence types too. But this is a great place to start if you want to practice making some longer sentences.

Thanks very much for watching this lesson and I will see you again soon. Bye!

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