In this lesson, you will learn about conjunctions and how to use them correctly. Also see - MOST COMMON MISTAKES IN ENGLISH & HOW TO AVOID THEM: • 50 MOST COMMON MISTAKE...
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Topics covered in this lesson include coordinating conjunctions, subordinating conjunctions, correlative conjunctions, and conjunctive adverbs. We will look at how to punctuate conjunctions: where to put commas, semicolons etc.
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Transcript:
Hi there, and welcome back to our parts of
speech series. In this lesson, you’re going to
learn about conjunctions. We’ll first discuss
what a conjunction is, and then we’ll look at
the four main types of conjunctions, and how to
avoid the most common mistake that people with
them - that is, how to punctuate conjunctions
correctly in writing. Alright, let’s begin.
As always, if you have any questions, just let
me know in the comments section below and I will
talk to you there. OK, so first, what is a
conjunction? A conjunction is a word that
connects parts of a sentence - it can connect
words or it can connect phrases or even clauses.
Look at these examples. In number one, “When
you go to London, you must try fish and chips.”
Fish and chips is a popular food in the UK. So
here, the conjunction ‘and’ connects two words
- fish and chips. In the next sentence,
“My cell phone is either on the table or in the
drawer.” The conjunction is the combination of
‘either .. or’ and it connects two phrases
‘on the table’ and ‘in the drawer’. And in
number three, can you find the conjunction?
The conjunction is ‘but ’ and it connects two
clauses (clauses are just like sentences) -
“Yazmin went to see her manager” is the first
clause and the second clause is
“he wasn’t in his office.”
So you see here that conjunctions can connect
any two parts of a sentence. Alright so now
let’s talk about the different types of
conjunctions in English.
Conjunctions come in four major types:
coordinating conjunctions (these are the words
and, or, but, so, yet, for and nor),
subordinating conjunctions (like because,
after, although, if, until etc.),
correlative conjunctions (these are pairs of
conjunctions such as either .. or,
neither .. nor, not only .. but also etc.) -
so in each one, you see two words that always
go together. And finally, conjunctive adverbs.
These are words like as a result, however,
in addition and therefore. They are adverbs
but they act like conjunctions (that is, they
help to join parts of a sentence). Now don’t
be scared by all these names - the names are
not important, what is important is knowing
how to use the conjunctions correctly.
Of course, conjunctions are a huge topic and
there are many grammar rules relating to them.
So today, we will focus on avoiding the most
common type of mistake with conjunctions, and
that is, punctuating them correctly in writing.
We won’t be discussing correlative conjunctions
because there aren’t any special punctuation
rules with them - but we will be discussing the
other three. So let’s start with coordinating
conjunctions first.
Coordinating conjunctions are probably the
most commonly used type of conjunction in
English. These are the words: and, or, but,
so, yet, for and nor. Now, the words for and
nor can be used as conjunctions but they’re
not used a lot (the word for is used much more
as a preposition not a conjunction). But the
other five are very common. Alright, let’s
talk about how to punctuate them correctly.
On the screen, there are four sentences. You
will notice that there are no commas in these.
So in all four sentences, I want you to put
commas wherever necessary. Pause the video and
think about your answers, then play the video
again and check.
OK, let’s look at the answers: in the first
two sentences, did you put a comma anywhere?
Actually, you don’t need any commas in these
two sentences. That is because when a
conjunction only connects two words or two
phrases, we don’t use commas. In number one,
the conjunction is ‘and ’ and it connects the
adjectives ‘beautiful’ and ‘spacious’. Only two
items - so no comma. In number two, the conjunction
is ‘or’ and it connects two noun phrases: ‘a library’
and ‘a restaurant’.