The Types of English Sentences

The Types of English Sentences

Today lesson is a writing lesson, but it also a spoken lesson; as it is about sentences types. Of course when you speaking you use all kinds of English types, but especially in writing, it is very important to know the different types of English sentences, because in your test and writing in general, it should be found a variety of your sentences. If you using only one type of sentence, your writing becomes very blank, very boring and very difficult to be followed by others. So, you need a variety of sentence structure in your writing to give it more life.

Luckily, you only need four types of English sentences: simple sentences, compound sentence, complex sentence and compound-complex sentence.  This is not exactly easy, but also, not exactly hard. If you figure out what you have to need in each sentence type, it makes it very easy to understand and use.

1 – The simple sentence

It is an independent clause which has a subject and a verb and a complete idea, the idea in that clause is complete. The simple sentence can stand by itself.

S          V             O

John studied English

Even with the weather being that nasty, the couples and their families decided to go ahead with the wedding as planned

That sentence is also a simple sentence, why?

 Because it only has one independent clause

Even with the weather being that nasty (a phrase) it does not contain a subject or a verb)

The couples and their families (subject) (and here is not a conjunction)

decided (verb) (a clause has only a tense verb, and that is the tense verb of that clause)

 to go a head with the wedding as planned (object) (to in not a tense verb, it is infinitive verb)

The key then is to recognize what is involved in the sentence to determine what its type.

2 – The compound sentence

The compound sentence has two or more ideas joined by a compound conjunction like: but, or, so, and, for etc... We joined two independent clauses with a compound conjunction

I arrived at the office at 9, and my assistant came 10 minutes later

I arrived at the office at 9 (complete sentence)

And (conjunction)

My assistant came 10 minutes later (complete sentence)

We can have two or more complete causes, we can add another one to the previous sentence

but she was sick so I told her to go home

We have then 4 independent clause

3 – The complex sentence

The complex sentence has one independent clause + one or more dependent clause. A dependent clause is a clause that has a subject and a verb but cannot stand by itself, it is not a complete idea. There is some sort of relationship between dependent clause to the independent clause. We have three types of dependent clauses: noun clause, verb clause and adjective clause.

John retired when he turned 65

John retired (a dependent clause)

When he turned 65: this is an adverb clause which has a subject and a verb after and adverb (when)

Whether you agree with me or not makes little difference to our investors, who, by the way, are the ones most affected by whatever mistakes we make.   

4 – The compound-complex sentence

It is a sentence that have two or more independent clauses joined by a conjunction and one or more dependent clause 

You Can Know all these types in detail in that video