Simple Compound Complex Sentences Learning English

There are three types of sentence structures. Simple, compound and complex. It’s important to use each of these structures, because it makes our writing more engaging for the reader. Simple Sentences. simple sentence has one independent clause- that is, it has subject, it has verb, and it is completed thought. Here’s an example of simple sentence: Grace opened the door. It has one subject, and one verb. Sometimes simple sentences have compound subject, like in this sentence ‘The table and chairs need to be cleaned.’ Simple sentence can also have compound verb, for example: The boy smiled and nodded. Here is another simple sentence. Even though it’s longer, we know it’s still simple sentence because it has one subject and one verb. Compound sentences. Compound sentences are combination of two or more independent clauses joined together by coordinating conjunction. Remembering the acronym FANBOYS is an easy way to remember the coordinating conjunctions we can use to join independent clauses. Here are two simple sentences. Grace opened the door. She looked outside. Let’s join them with the coordinating conjunction ‘and’. We have created compound sentence. Grace opened the door and she looked outside. This sentence has two independent clauses. That is, both clauses are completed thought with subject and verb. Here are some other compound sentences. They each have more than one independent clause and are joined by coordinating conjunction. Complex sentences. Complex sentences are composed of an independent clause and dependent clause. Dependent clauses are not completed thoughts. Here is complex sentence. When he won the award, everyone cheered. This is the independent clause because it has one subject and one verb and it’s completed thought. This clause is dependent clause because even though it has subject and verb, it’s not completed thought. Let’s look at another example. Now that have saved up, can buy bike. This is an independent clause because it has one subject, one verb and is completed thought. This is dependent clause because it’s not completed thought. The dependent clause can go at the end of the sentence, like this. Or it can go first in the sentence, like this. Notice that if the dependent clause begins the sentence, we use comma to separate the clauses. See if you can work out the structure of these sentences. Karl knew lots about monkeys. That’s right, it’s simple sentence. It has one subject and one verb. Let’s try another one. ‘Although Matt was running late, he seemed relaxed.’ That’s right, it’s complex sentence. It has an independent clause which is completed thought and dependent clause which isn’t completed thought. One more. ‘He was hungry, so he ate.’ It’s compound sentence! It has two independent clauses- they are both completed thoughts joined using the coordinating conjunction ‘so’. Identifying different sentence structures is easy! EasyTeaching.net