Express Yourself: Make longer sentences

Hey language fans! Are you excited to speak more naturally? Today, let’s learn about the fantastic world of defining relative clauses! These helpful grammar tools help you sound more natural, make longer sentences, and sound more fluent. So, let’s start! 

What are defining relative clauses and why should I use them?

Defining relative clauses give essential information about something you’re talking about. They’re important for fluency. But why? 

Let’s look at this example: 

Example 1: “Marco is the guy. He sits with me on the bus.”

It's correct but it sounds robotic.

Eample 2: “Marco is the guy who sits with me on the bus.”

Sounds much more fluent because we connected two pieces of information with ‘who,’ a relative pronoun to make a nice, long, anc clear sentence. 

Here are some other reasons you should use relative clauses:  

1. To speak clearly: Using defining relative clauses makes your sentences much more clear and  easier to understand. 

2. To sound more natural: To sound like a fluent English speaker you need to connect your ideas smoothly. Defining relative clauses help you connect your thoughts naturally. If you can do this, your communication skills will improve. 

3. To use different kinds of sentences: Language learners often use the same kinds of sentences again and again. By using defining clauses, you can use many kinds of sentences and this will improve your communication abilities, your fluency, and general level of speaking. 

How to use defining relative clauses?

So what do you need to make defining relative clauses? 

You need to know relative pronouns which are words like: 

• who

• which

•  that 

• where