The Best Professional Connectors to Explain Your Opinions in English

108,821 views ・ 2025-03-05

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Please double-click on the English subtitles below to play the video.

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How many times have you shared an opinion in English,
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but halfway through your words weren't really coming together as smoothly
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as you wanted?
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Maybe you found yourself saying too much or searching for the right words,
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trying to wrap up your thoughts. This might happen, for example,
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when a coworker asks for your opinion in a meeting and again,
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you have a difficult time explaining why you have a certain perspective
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or perhaps a friend shares her thoughts about a movie you just saw. And again,
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you're not really sure how to put your ideas into place.
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If that sounds familiar to you, here's what I want you to know.
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It's not at all because your English isn't good enough.
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It's simply because you don't have the right connectors in place.
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Words like because.
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So that and due to these connectors improve your flow and
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help your ideas to feel structured rather than scattered.
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They also help you explain your reasoning,
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which makes your opinion stronger and more engaging. Ultimately,
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this helps you sound confident and professional.
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Instead of hesitant or unsure of your own opinions.
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I want you to think about it for a moment.
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When you hear someone confidently explain why they believe something,
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doesn't it make their opinion more persuasive?
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That's exactly what we're going to work on today. By the end of this lesson,
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you'll have the best professional connectors to explain your reasoning
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smoothly.
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You'll also have a simple structure to make your opinions sound polished and
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professional in English. Ultimately,
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you'll have more confidence in sharing your thoughts without hesitation or
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over-explaining. Now,
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I want you to stick with me because at the end I do have a challenge for you so
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you can put all of these strategies together and start using the right
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connectors to get started.
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Let's talk about how to structure your opinion so that it's clear, logical,
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and easy to follow.
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English speakers naturally use a three part structure when we're
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expressing an opinion. The first step is to clearly state your opinion.
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This is where you introduce your perspective in a direct confident
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way. Most of the time you're going to hear this with a sentence starter like I
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believe, I think I would say,
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and I feel following that immediate statement of your perspective.
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Step two is to explain why, and this is where the connectors come in.
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Strong opinions should be supported by clear reasoning and
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connectors help you explain the why behind your statement.
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So again, this would include words such as because since,
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and due to however, we're going to learn many more in this lesson today.
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Before we get there, let's talk about the third step in a.
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Clear logical opinion,
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wrap it up with a conclusion or a question.
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Doing this makes your opinion feel complete or finished.
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You can do this by reinforcing your point or inviting further discussion.
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For example, after stating your opinion and why you have it, you might say,
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that's why I think this is a good solution, or what do you think?
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Before we get into our professional connectors,
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I want to give you two examples of this step-by-step process in action.
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We're gonna look at a social example and a professional,
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so let's imagine in a social setting I might say,
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I think the new wicked movie was great because the actors did justice to the
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roles and didn't stray from the original characters.
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What did you think about it? I have my opinion, my reasoning,
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and a way to reinforce or invite discussion on that opinion.
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And now let's look at a professional option.
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I believe we should adjust the project timeline since the current deadlines
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don't give us enough time for quality control. What's your take on this?
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When you structure your opinion in English using this three-step process
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and when you include your reason why you have that particular opinion,
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your ideas are more clear and more persuasive.
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Now of course, simply following this structure isn't enough.
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The connectors you choose are going to determine how natural and confident
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you sound.
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So let's go deeper into the best professional connectors you can use
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to explain your opinions clearly in English.
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We're going to explore three categories of connectors today and we'll start with
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the most important explaining why you think something or what happened as
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a result. We need this because when you're expressing your opinion,
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you're not just saying what you think,
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you're answering an important question why,
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and this is where our connectors come in.
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So let's start with cause or the reason why you have a
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particular belief or opinion.
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In English we have several go-to words for this.
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The first is the most common because which means for this reason.
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Next on this list is sense and we use this when the reason for
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an opinion is already pretty clear or obvious.
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Now similar to the word because we can also use due to
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it's very similar in meaning but slightly more formal.
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And here's one more that has a very similar meaning just like due to
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we can use because of these two function in the same way
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grammatically however of these two due to is more formal
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and because of is used more often in everyday conversation.
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Now I've got one more in this list, but before I go there,
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I know you might be thinking Annemarie,
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it sounds like you've just given me a list of words that all have very similar
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meaning. And you're right, English speakers love variety.
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We like to use different vocabulary and sentence structures.
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This allows us to have more than one way to express what we think.
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Now you don't have to start using all of these today.
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My recommendation is learn one or two connectors that are new to you.
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Start incorporating them into your conversations and your writing and
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then once you're comfortable you can add a couple more.
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Now the last one on this particular list is the word As
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we use this when we're emphasizing the result of a situation,
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let's take a look at how these work. In real conversations,
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I want you to imagine you're talking about your company,
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the place where you work, and you might say,
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I like this company because the people are friendly.
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Or maybe you're making weekend plans and you could say,
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since the sun is shining, let's go to the park.
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Remember we talked about using sense to highlight that the reason for something
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is already clear and obvious.
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It is clear and obvious to everyone that the sun is shining and it's a good
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reason to go to the park.
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If you needed to explain why you were late to a meeting,
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you might say I was late due to traffic.
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And when letting someone know why an event was canceled,
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you could say the meeting was canceled because of the storm.
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And here's one more using as as our local coffee shop
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has closed, we have to drive two miles away for good coffee.
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Before we move on to our next category,
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I wanna talk about something that is grammatically important when we're using
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the words due to and because of these are always followed
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by a noun like traffic, the storm,
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the delay for example,
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I cannot say I was late due to it was raining.
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That doesn't work for us. Instead you would say,
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I was late because it was raining.
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This is a simple but important difference. Now, at the start of this section,
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I highlighted that we're looking at words that help us explain why or
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what happened,
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so let's take a look at a few more connectors that help us express the what
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happened, what was the result of something.
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For that we use words like so,
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and this helps us to show a consequence or an outcome.
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We might also use witches.
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Why this explains a reason at the beginning or the end of a sentence.
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Let's take a look at a few examples.
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Let's say that you studied really hard for some exams and you want to highlight
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the result. You might say,
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I studied hard so I passed all three exams.
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Or maybe your team just had a really successful meeting and in telling someone
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else about it, you might say the meeting went well,
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which is why we got the project. Now,
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before we move on to our second category of connectors,
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I want to give you a challenge to practice.
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I want you to think about something that you did recently.
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Maybe you just started to learn English,
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maybe you changed jobs or maybe you moved to a new city.
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How would you explain why? For example,
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you might start with I started learning English because,
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or since I wanted to improve my communication skills I,
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or due to my work environment,
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I decided to take a moment to finish those example sentences.
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As always, you can also share them with me in the comments below.
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Now that we've covered connectors for cause and result,
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let's move on to purpose.
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To further explain the why behind your decisions.
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Just like expressing what you think.
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When you share a thought or a decision that you've already made,
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you're not just talking about what you did,
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you might also need to explain why you did it.
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And for that we use purpose connectors.
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I want to share with you three great ways to express why you did something.
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The first is in order to,
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this is more formal and allows you to emphasize your intention.
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Now a more informal everyday conversational version of in order to
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is simply using the word to, and I'll share an example with you in a moment.
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The third in this category is so that,
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and this focuses on the ultimate desired response.
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Here's what all of these would sound like in real conversational examples.
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Let's start with evaluating why you started to learn English for work.
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You might say,
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I'm taking these lessons in order to communicate better at work.
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Again, using in order to is a more formal version.
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You might also say, I joined this course to improve my speaking skills,
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or I'm studying English so that I can work abroad.
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Again, in that example,
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we're emphasizing the ultimate goal or desire that you have. Now,
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I want to pause here for a moment because in category one,
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focusing on cause and results we had,
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so as a connector and here when talking about purpose,
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we had so that what's the difference?
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Let's take a look at two example sentences to help.
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The first is I went by car so that I could take
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more luggage to the hotel with so that we're highlighting the
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purpose for making that decision.
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What pros and cons did we evaluate in order to come to that decision?
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We could also say,
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I went by car so I was able to take more luggage to the hotel.
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Here we're emphasizing the ultimate result.
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It might not have been a factor in the original decision,
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but it was a positive result. In the end,
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one is about what you intended to do and the other is about what happened in
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the end. So now let's do a quick practice again.
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I want you to think about a decision that you've made recently.
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Maybe you changed jobs or signed up for a new English class.
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I want you to try finishing these sentences.
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I started learning English two or I changed careers
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so that and now what if you need to give more than one reason for your
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opinion?
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That's where our next category of connectors comes in because sometimes one
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reason isn't enough.
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Maybe you love your neighborhood where you live and there are multiple reasons
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why. Or maybe you think a decision at work is a great idea,
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but there's more than one benefit that you want to highlight.
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For clear organized speech,
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we use connectors to add more details and here's how we
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can do that. The first,
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another reason is this allows us to add a separate
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second reason to support a decision or an opinion we can also
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use, plus, this is a bit more casual,
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quite often used in everyday speech similar to plus is using
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also very neutral and commonly used.
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And a fourth option is on top of that.
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This adds emphasis and may be used to highlight a surprising
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detail. Now again, let's take a look at all of these in action.
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Let's say that someone asks you, do you like your new neighborhood?
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And you might say, I love my new neighborhood because it's so close to work.
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On top of that my friends live there and there are many great restaurants
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nearby.
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Or imagine you're trying to explain why you support a particular company policy.
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You might say this new work from home policy is great
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for those who prefer to work at different times of the day. Also,
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it helps employees save money on commuting. And here's one more.
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Let's say that you're giving feedback to someone on a new cafe that you tried.
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You might say, I love this new cafe, the coffee's excellent,
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plus they have delicious pastries. Now,
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one important thing to keep in mind about using on top of that or another
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reason is both of these can only be used at the beginning
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of a sentence. And once again, let's do a bit of practice.
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I want you to think of something that you really enjoy or support.
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It could be your job, a new hobby, a policy change,
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or even a favorite restaurant.
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How would you give two reasons for your particular opinion? You could try.
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I love because and plus or one reason I
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support is a, another reason is,
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and now let's do a quick recap. Today we did quite a few things.
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We started with a three step structure to ensure that you can share
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a clear, well organized opinion in English.
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Then we learned a variety of connectors for cause and result explaining why
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something happened. Next,
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we moved on to purpose connectors showing why you did something,
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and finally we learned how to add extra reasons to strengthen an opinion.
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So now I want you to put all of this into practice.
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Here's my challenge for you. I want you to think about this question.
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Why did you choose to learn English? In your answer,
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I want you to try to use at least two connectors from today's lesson.
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You might begin with,
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I started learning English because or since I wanted to improve my
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communication skills or I'm learning English. So that,
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and another reason is as always you can share your answers and
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your questions with me in the comments below. Also,
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if you found this lesson helpful to you, I would love to know,
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give this lesson a thumbs up here on YouTube and while you're at it,
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make sure you subscribe so you never miss one of my Confident English lessons.
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Thank you so much for joining me and I look forward to seeing you next time.
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