Phrases and Clauses - What's the Difference?

Today I want to talk about something that's a little bit, you know, I might say upper

intermediate.

Don't be scared.

If you've been with me before, you'll love it.

I'm also going to speak a little bit faster today.

That's right.

Upper intermediate, you should be able to listen at a faster speed, okay?

This isn't the speed at which I'll be speaking with my students at my school.

So let's do it.

Today I want to talk about phrases and clauses and what the difference is between them, alright?

So we have a phrase and we have a clause, sort of like Superman and Batman.

Okay, why?

Well Batman's pretty good, he's very useful, alright?

But he doesn't have superpowers.

Now you're going to say, "Which one is Superman and which one is Batman?"

Let's go to the board.

So phrase, well one common phrase people know are phrasal verbs.

These tend to be two to three word verbs, okay?

So you've got a two to three word verb and you might say, for instance, "Pick it up."

Or more commonly, "Move out, show off," okay?

Now when we usually do that, with the exception of, let's just get, let's pretend I didn't

say that, I said, "Pick up."

Let's just say I said, "Pick up" instead, okay?

You'll notice something.

We have a preposition plus a verb, but there are no subjects.

That is usually what a phrase is.

A phrase usually is a sentence fragment with a verb or a noun, okay?

So it's usually a sentence fragment with a verb or a noun, but nothing else.

So you might say, "Pick up."

"Up" is a preposition, "pick" is the verb, no noun.

Or "show off."

"Show" is the verb, preposition is "off."

And "make out."

Yeah, "make out."

Anyway, so, I should put that on the board.

At the end of the lesson, I'll show you "make out," especially if you're cute.

Anyway, so, that's our phrasal verb, it is a sentence fragment with a verb or a noun,

but not both.

That's why it's Batman.

It's really kind of cool, but it's nothing special.

Now if we want to add more information, now we're going to go over here, ready?

Okay, let's go.

We're going to go to a clause.

What is a clause?

A clause is a sentence fragment with, with a, guess what?

Well, if one has only one, Superman is everything, right?

He's super strong, super fast, and you know, like me, super, oh, nothing.

But anyway, we've got work to do.

So a fragment, so a sentence fragment with what?

With a verb and a noun, okay?

So it's a little bit more powerful because we can start making fuller sentences.

Why am I teaching you this?

Well, because there's something called clauses, when we have clausal sentences, and what I

mean by a clause sentence, there's different ones.

There's an adjective clause sentence, adverb clause sentence, or adverbial clause sentence,

time clause sentences.

And these are important to learn because, well, I'll show you why.

I'm going to give you a basic lesson on clauses, a clause, or a clause sentence, and you can

start applying this to your time clauses, adverbial clauses, or your adjective clauses,

okay?

Let's go.

So, we've done this one, it's kind of boring, okay?

I mean, one more final example we could do here is what?

Just to make sure you're clear on it, you could say, "A black cat."

See, yeah, I know, boring, but Batman's not boring, don't mess with the bat.

Okay, so, I'll get rid of this, and we're going to talk and specialize right now on,

we're going to go to clauses.

So, you ready?

We just done Batman, and we're going to do Superman.

Superman was a clause, and remember what we said about clauses, we said a clause is a

sentence fragment, alright, that has a verb and a noun.

This is important for a reason, because we use it for adverbial clauses, adjective clauses,

and time clauses, alright?

So, with a verb and a noun, or a subject, verb and a noun, verb and a subject, okay?

So, why don't you put subjects, because, subject.

So, what are we going to do?

What we want to do is look at the structure of clauses.

So, when we're doing this, you'll notice the first thing about a clause is it comes in

two parts, it's a pair, alright?

So it's a pair, and being a pair, which means two things, we have one part that's called

the independent clause, and then the second part, which we call the dependent clause.

Now, what do they do?

Let's take a look.

To be independent is to stand alone, alright?

If you're an adult, you're independent, you have your own house, or sorry, you have your

own apartment, your own house, you have your own car, you have your own job, you live on

your own, you're independent, you don't need anybody or anything, alright?

That's the independent clause, it can stand alone.

What about the dependent clause, well it needs something, and what does it need?

It needs the independent clause, alright?

So what happens is we actually have a structure that's followed here, because you can actually,

believe it or not, put them either way.

You can do a sentence with the independent clause first, or with the dependent clause

first, but there is one rule that goes with this.

Let's do an example sentence, and I'll let you try and figure out the independent clause

versus the dependent clause, and I'm going to do this with a time clause, and this specific

one will be with a past tense, alright?

So I'm going to ask you to spot which is the independent clause and which is the dependent

clause.

Look carefully.

When I got home, I ate dinner, there's something peculiar about this sentence, and this is

how I'm going to teach you independent versus dependent clause.

Did you guess?

Well, first of all, you would notice there's two parts to the sentence, how do you know?

Well there's this little mark here, that tells you, there seems to be two things brought

together.

In both cases, I here, I there, we have a subject and a verb, subject and a verb.

So we've got our clause, right?

But one of them is independent and one is dependent.

If I say to you, I ate dinner, you know what that means, right?

I ate dinner, McDonald's, maybe some pizza, maybe I'm from Italy, I ate some pizza for

dinner.

But I mean, maybe I ate dinner, but you know, you're clear about that.

If you said that's the independent clause, bravo, yes, that's the independent clause,

because it stands alone, remember the rule we talked about, you can say it, you don't

have to ask questions about it.

Now here's the dependent clause.

The dependent clause doesn't quite make sense without the independent clause.

When I got home, now I'm sure if you hear me say that sentence again, when I got home,

you're going, tell me, right?

That's why it's the dependent clause, because it leads you somewhere, but it doesn't finish

it off.

It's the independent clause that gives you the meat, or it tells you, boom, this is what

you need to know.

That's why we call it, also, in other words, the main clause.

When we deal with different clauses, like the time clause, we call it the main clause,

because it's where the meat is, where what the information we need is, okay?

So whether it be adjective, adverbial, or time, the independent clause is the main clause,

okay?

Now, the dependent clause, as we noticed, needs it here.

Here's the hint, though.

If you have a sentence like this, and you see this comma, you always know that the dependent

clause comes first.

Now you know, right?

Dependent clause comes first if you see a comma.

If there isn't a comma, this is bad grammar.

What you have to do now is you actually have to erase the whole thing.

The magic of film.

See that?

I erased the board.

It's clean.

You have to erase the whole thing, and you have to say, "I ate dinner when I got home."

Correct grammar.

Notice?

No comma.

As soon as you see there's no comma, you'll go, "Hey, this must be the independent clause,

and this is the dependent clause."

Cool.

Now, I told you this was a time clause for a reason.

I'm going to give you another little hint, because as much as you may know this particular

sentence, it won't help you in the future, but this will.

There are four words that usually go with time clauses.

I'm going to put them up quickly, so you'll remember this, so I'm just giving you, believe

it or not, a lesson on clauses, phrases, and time clauses in less than 10 minutes.

Let me wrap it up.

Notice I'm talking faster.

I told you, upper-intermediate.

Get used to it.

It's the way we speak around here.

All right?

What are the four words for the time clause?

See, this is four words.

These are four main words.

If I, well, when you come back for future time, I'll teach you the other two.

But they go, "when," and these are for the past, specifically for the past, but they're

also used in the future as well, so you go, "when."

You have, "after."

You have, "before."

"After," "before."

Uh-oh.

I forgot the third one.

Okay.

Back.

It's, "while."

I hope you were busy while I was doing that.

Sorry about that.

"While."

There you go.

So those are the four time clause words that we use for the simple past, also used with

the future.

There are a couple ones with the future.

Another lesson, we'll get back to that.

I'm running out of time.

So, I'm going to wrap up quickly and say, I've got to go.

Go to engvid.com.

You know where that is.

"Eng" is in English, "vid" is in video.

And I'll see you for the next lesson.

Right?

Clauses.

Phrases.

So, time clause.