Advanced English Grammar: Multi-Clause Sentences (Embedded Clauses)

Hi, everybody.

Welcome to www.engvid.com.

I'm Adam.

In today's lesson, I have a little bit of

an advanced grammar lesson, so make sure you

take your time and concentrate because this can be a little bit difficult, okay?

What I'm going to show you is how to look at a multi-clause sentence, a sentence that

has more than one clause, or quite a few

clauses, and some of these clauses are inside

other clauses.

So, we would call this "embedded clauses".

Now, you can have very simple embedded clauses.

This is not simple, okay?

So, here's what I want you to do first.

Before I show you all the different clauses

in this sentence, I want you to take a moment

and try to identify them by yourself.

You can press pause on your video player, try to identify all the different clauses,

and then when you're ready, press play, come

back, and I'll walk you through this sentence

slowly and show you all the different clauses,

and then show you how all the relationships

work or how all the different pieces work together, okay?

Whenever you're ready, come back.

I'm going to start.

So, first, let me read the sentence.

"Many young people are taught that if they work hard while they are young, they will

have a good life as adults because they will have the money to do what they want."

Legitimate sentence.

It's actually not even that long because there's enough information in it.

It's properly organized, but there are quite a few different pieces to it.

So you need to start understanding the relationships

between all these different pieces and how

they work together.

So let's start.

"Many young people are taught", you have a

subject, you have a verb, a passive, but it's

still a verb, "are taught something", right?

So this is your independent clause because

subject, verb, and there's an object coming,

so we're going to leave that there.

I'm just going to work with these two markers here.

Okay?

Now, first thing you notice, here's a "that",

and I'm going to put this in a little bit

of a square.

"Taught what", so I need an object for "taught",

and this is the beginning of my object.

This is the beginning of a noun clause.

And I'll tell you a little bit more about noun clauses, adjective clauses, all that

after.

So, basically, from here - actually, I'm going to do this differently.

I'm going to put this here.

Everything between the two brackets is the object "are taught".

They are taught all of this, beginning with a noun clause conjunction, or a noun clause

marker.

Good.

Right away, you see another one, "if".

"If they work", so you have a conjunction, subject, and verb, so right away you have

your second clause.

So now, the question is, what is the - this is a clause I mentioned, it's a noun clause

- a clause must have a subject and a verb.

So, what is the subject and verb of - that goes with "that"?

Same.

If they work - oh, no, not - sorry, this way.

They work.

"That they work".

So right away, you can notice that both of these conjunctions are actually sharing a

clause, a subject and a verb combination.

So, if I break it down like this, so, young

people are taught that they will have a good

life as adults, right?

This is your independent clause with the object noun clause.

Now, if they work hard while they are young,

they will have - when will they have, or how

will they have a good life as adults?

If they work hard, they will have a good life as adults.

So, I have this conjunction and this conjunction sharing one clause.

And this is where people get confused, because

they don't - you have to understand that clauses

can be shared.

Dependent clauses can be shared.

Independent clause is independent and must be able to stand by itself.

Dependents, you can start playing with them, you can share, etc.

But we're not done yet.

If they work hard, when?

Well, while they are young.

Here we have another clause.

But this one is very specific to a part of this here.

Work when?

This is an adverb clause answering the question "when" about this verb "work".

So, this verb "work" is right now working on three different clauses, right?

While they are young, and subject verb, objects

of - subject object, subject verb of the adverb

clause.

So, the entire adverb clause is answering the question of "when" about "work".

Hope you're with me still so far.

I'm going to try to slow down a little bit.

So, if they work hard while they are young, they will have a good life.

So, this is one - sorry, good life as adults.

Good.

So far, so good.

Why will they have a good life as adults?

Because - and I'm starting another adverb clause - because they will have.

Because they will have - sorry.

Why will they have something?

Because they will have money.

So, now I have another adverb clause working on this verb.

So, this is what you have to remember.

Adverb clauses have a relationship with some sort of verb.

That's why they're called adverb clauses.

They work like adverbs - yeah, they work like adverbs to modify verbs.

But you can share verbs.

You can share clauses, so you can have more than one clause.

They will have the money, okay?

What about this money?

What kind of money?

To do something with it, right?

So, this is a complement phrase, but "do" needs an object.

Do what?

Well, they'll do what they want.

Now, I have another noun clause acting as the object to the verb "do", a transitive

object.

You need to answer the question "what".

So, there you go.

That if - so, think of it like this.

How many conjunctions do you see?

I see one, I see two, I see three, I see - whoops.

While they are young, they will have - oh, I see four, and I see five.

Five dependent clauses with one independent clause, one sentence.

So, that and if share this part of the clause.

They will have a good life.

Why?

Because they will have the money.

So, adverb clauses modify verbs.

Noun clauses work as subjects or objects.

In this case, I have two noun clauses working as objects.

"That" taught what?

That something.

"Do" what?

What they want.

Noun clauses.

Now, if you're not exactly sure what I'm talking

about, if this is all very confusing, keep

in mind that this is a little bit advanced.

You might need to do a little bit of review,

but luckily, I have made four videos already.

One is about an introduction to dependent clauses and how they work.

I made a video about noun clauses, adjective

clauses, and adverb clauses, and all of them

are linked to this video.

If you're not sure what's going on here, watch those videos.

Make sure you understand everything there, and then come back and watch this one again

to see how all the pieces work together.

Now, one other thing I want to point out.

You'll notice that I have two conjunctions, one right after the other.

Whenever you see this, when you see two conjunctions,

automatically think they are probably sharing

something.

They are sharing a piece of the clause, and

you need to identify what it is they're sharing

and how they're sharing it, and then you'll be able to understand how the sentence is

working.

So, don't worry, we're not done yet.

I'm going to give you another example and

see if you can have a little bit easier time

with that one.

Okay, so here is another example.

I'm going to step aside.

I want you to take a moment.

You can press pause again if you need to.

Read the sentence and try to understand what

is going on, what are the relationships, what

are the clauses, and then press play, and I'll walk you through it again.

So, again, slowly, surely, take your time.

Identify all the pieces.

Okay.

Are you ready?

Okay, we're going to walk through this.

This one's a little bit easier.

There's a few...

There's fewer clauses, so it should be more clear.

"In Canada, a car that doesn't have winter tires

in winter is not only useless, but dangerous

because if a major snowfall covers the roads,

the car will not be able to move or brake

properly."

That's the sentence.

Start identifying the pieces.

"In Canada, a car..."

So, we have "a car" means indefinite, so we want to make it a bit more definite.

We want to say something about this car, so "a car that doesn't have winter tires".

Here is your first clause.

Now, what type of clause is this?

It's not a noun clause.

Here we have an adjective clause.

An adjective clause that is telling you about

the car, it's identifying which specific type

of car is going to be useless and dangerous, which we'll get to.

So, and what's the...

So, you have the clause conjunction.

What's the rest of it?

Subject verb.

I only see "doesn't have".

Where's the subject?

This is not only the conjunction, it's also the subject.

Remember, adjective clauses, the conjunction can be the subject.

"So, a car that doesn't have winter tires in winter is...

"Is" goes with "car", subject verb, is not only useless, but dangerous.

A car...

So, the car, this type of car is not only useless, but dangerous.

So, here is your independent clause.

A car is not only useless, but dangerous.

That's your independent clause.

Here, you're identifying which type of car we're talking about specifically, and here

we're going to give some more information.

We're going to explain why is it useless,

why is it dangerous, and we're going to start

with "because", adverb clause, to show a reason.

Because if a major snowfall covers the roads,

the car will not be able to move or brake

properly.

So, it's useless and dangerous because the car

will not be able to move or brake properly.

Why won't it be able to move, or in what circumstances

or what conditions will it not be able to

move or brake properly?

Well, if a major snowfall covers the roads.

So, again, we're sharing a piece of the clause with "because" and with "if", okay?

I hope everybody's getting this.

Keep in mind, I could move the "if" clause

to a different area, but I put them together

because I wanted you to see when you have two clauses right next to each other, this

is where people start to get a little bit confused.

It's not really that confusing.

First thing you want to do, finish the clause,

"because what", and then find out what the

reason is.

And then, "if what", and "if", "if condition", what's the result?

Here's the condition, same result as the "because",

they're working together, they're sharing,

and then the whole thing makes sense, and

all of this, from "because" to the end, tells

you why they're useless and dangerous, okay?

So, I hope that's a little bit clear.

Now, I know this is not easy, it's not really

supposed to be easy, that's the whole point

of complex sentences, and this is a very complex

sentence, but if you want to ask me questions,

first of all, please go to www.engvid.com, comment section, ask me questions.

But remember that all of this needs practice.

So, at www.engvid.com there's also a quiz, you

have more sample sentences to work through,

and options to see how everything works together,

take the quiz, but remember, there are four

other videos that you can watch to get a little

bit more background information about clauses.

Watch those, watch this one again, take the quiz, and hopefully you get a good score on it.

And if you don't get a good score, don't worry,

practice, practice, practice, score goes up,

up, up.

Okay.

Now, if you want to see more of this type of lesson, more advanced grammar with more

complicated things in the language, you can also visit my other channel, Write to the Top,

so youtube.com/@WritetotheTop or writetotop.com.

I concentrate on...

In that channel I concentrate on writing skills,

and especially with very advanced grammar,

if that's what you're looking for.

Okay?

In the meantime, I hope you like this video,

I hope you enjoyed it, because I know it's

a little bit tricky, but it's fun, grammar is fun, everybody likes grammar.

If you like the video, give me a like, don't

forget to subscribe to my channel, and ring

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videos, and come back soon, I'll try to make

some more interesting grammar lessons for you.

See you then.

Bye-bye.