Improve your writing: Adverb Clauses

Hey guys, this is Alex. Thanks for clicking, and welcome to this lesson on adverb clauses.

Now this is especially useful for those of you who are writing essays, or are just generally

more interested in learning about English grammatical structure, especially when it

comes to writing. Now, I'm not saying these are not useful in speaking, but a lot of them

will be more useful in your written work. So, first of all, what is an adverb? Okay,

well, an adverb, again, it can modify a verb. It tells you how something is done, when something

is done, why something is done. So, what we have here are adverb clauses. So, a clause

is a part of a sentence. It has a subject, a verb, and an object. Now, there are two

kinds of clauses. You can have a subordinate clause, or just a regular independent clause.

An independent clause is a clause that expresses a complete thought. It has a subject, a verb,

and an object, and a complete meaning. A subordinate clause is a clause that has a subordinating

conjunction, as well as a complete sentence, but it doesn't make sense by itself. It needs

help, okay? So, on the board here, we have some subordinate clauses, adverb clauses,

specifically, followed by regular independent clauses. So, on the board, let's look at the

first sentence here. This one says, "When I finished my work, I called you." Okay, first

of all, can you tell me which of these two parts of the sentence, which of them expresses

a complete thought? You will see that they are separated by a comma here, right? So,

this is one clause, "When I finished my homework," and this is another clause, "I called you."

Okay, this one, you have a subject, a verb, and an object. This one, you have a subject,

a verb, and an object, but you also have the word "when." Now, the word "when" is called

a subordinating conjunction, in this case. Okay, I hope you can read that. Now, what

this means, again, is that this sentence, this part of the sentence, "When I finished

my homework," is not a complete thought, okay? You can't just go up to someone and say, "When

I finished my homework." Okay, you need more information, right? So, that's where this

part of the sentence comes in. "I called you." "When I finished my homework, I called you."

This is a complete sentence. "I called you." I can go up to someone and say, "I called

you," and they understand that it's a complete thought. Now, this, all of these, are examples

of adverb clauses. So, if you look at the words here, let's circle the subordinating

conjunctions. So, "When I finished my homework, I called you." "Because there was a lot of

traffic, I showed up late." What is the subordinating conjunction here? "Because there was a lot

of traffic, I showed up late." "Everywhere I go, I take my camera." Here you have "everywhere."

"If she's going to the party, I won't go." "If." "While she's good at math, I'm good

at history." "While." So, again, these can really, really help you when you want to tell

someone when something happened, why something happened, where something happened, okay?

So, let's look at this example. "Because there was a lot of traffic, I showed up late." Again,

"I showed up late" is an independent clause. This is a subordinate clause, an adverb clause

that needs more information. "Because there was a lot of traffic." Okay, you need more

information there, okay? Just like, "Everywhere I go." You need more information. So, what

an adverb clause does is, it basically qualifies this sentence. It gives you a little bit,

it gives you the starter for the next sentence. So, "Everywhere I go, I take my camera." Now,

you'll notice, when you have a subordinate clause, when you begin a sentence or a thought

with a subordinate clause, like we've done here, "When I finished my work." "Because

there was a lot of traffic." "Everywhere I go." "If she's going to the party." "While

she's good at math." We always separate the two clauses with a comma, comma, comma, comma,

and comma. And the second part of the clause is going to be a complete sentence. "I called

you." "I showed up late." "I take my camera." "I won't go." "I'm good at history." So, when

the subordinate clause, the adverb clause, here comes first, you have to separate it

with a comma before you start the next part of the sentence. However, you can actually

flip these around, okay? So that the subordinate clause, the adverb clause, comes second in

the sentence. So, if you wanted to say, "I called you when I finished my work," you can

do that. If you want to say, "I showed up late because there was a lot of traffic,"

you can do that. When the independent clause comes first, okay? So, for example, let's

do this sentence. "I showed up late because there was a lot of work." Or, sorry, "a lot

of traffic." "A lot of traffic." When you put the independent clause first, you don't

need a comma, okay? It's only when you begin the sentence with one of these types of words.

So, let's look now at the types of subordinating adverb clauses. Okay, now we have some common

adverb clause types on the board. So, as you saw in the previous segment of the video,

we had some sentences and they all began with words like "because," "when," "where," "if."

And what we have here are examples and a bit more detail in terms of what these words and

expressions actually mean. So, some common types of adverb clauses are adverb clauses

of time. Now, these can begin with words like, for example, "when," "while," "before," "after,"

"once." So, for example, "After I finished my breakfast, I went to school." Or, "Before

I called my dad, I had been watching TV." You can have an adverb clause of reason. So,

these are words and clauses that begin with subordinating conjunctions like "because,"

"so," and "since." So, again, these tell you why something happened, okay? "Place," "where,"

"everywhere," "anywhere," "wherever." So, kind of like, "Anywhere I go, I meet some

interesting people." Or, "Everywhere I have visited, I have always enjoyed the food."

Okay? "Condition." Now, a condition, the most common word that you're going to use here

is "if." We also have expressions like "even if" and "only if." Finally, you have adverb

clauses of contrast. So, these are some of your very, very common English words like

"even though," "although," "whereas," not that common, but still to be used, especially in writing,

and "while." Okay? So, these are some common types of adverb clauses. This is not a definitive,

complete list, but this is a good, good, good foundation to give you a structure for how

you can use them in the future. Okay? Now, again, you can use them mostly in written

form. You can use them in speaking, but knowing adverb clauses will really, really, really

improve your writing, especially. If you'd like to test out your knowledge of these adverb

clause types and adverb clauses in general, you can check out the quiz on www.engvid.com.

Good luck, guys, and take care. Okay, one more thing, guys. If you'd like to get more

information on adverb clauses and adverb clause types and learn more words related to adverb

clauses of time, reason, place, condition, and contrast, please check out the resources

page also found on www.engvid.com, and you'll get some more examples and more information

in general about this. Okay? Good luck.