Showing posts with label Sentence Structure. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Sentence Structure. Show all posts

Sentence Patterns for Presentations



What happened to you the last time you did a presentation?  Did you get tongue-tight?  Did you prepare well but did not know what to say?  Did you have some big ideas to talk about but ……

 


Well, if you have a better knowledge of English, if you know more about grammar, or if you understand sentence structures better, will it make a (big) difference?






Well, actually there are 3 patterns, practical and useful, for you:



                                                                          
Pattern 1: that + ‘sentence’ 
              e.g. The CEO suggested that we cut the cost on marketing.





Pattern 2: followed by Verb+ing
             e.g. We will consider meeting the deadline (suggested by your company).
                     
   

         
Pattern 3: person + to+verb
             e.g. The bank manager advised his frontline staff to be polite.





In this post you will learn more about Pattern 1.  








Pattern 1 (that + ‘sentence’): When to use it?




So you may think pattern 1 seems easy.  But the point is: when to use it?  When you have something that is loooooong, when you have an idea, you take this pattern. (Well, of course, make sure your idea is a good one!)














So examples of ideas that are loooong and good may be:



that we are going to change the world


that our company is going to dominate the market


that the product will be a hot item for the next ten years



that we are going to change the way (customers think about smart phones)







Verbs that Go with Pattern 1  


Well, you’ve got the gun, I mean the sentence pattern.  But you still need one more thing.  What is it?  Obviously, you need bullets, or verbs that you can use to go with this pattern.  There are quite a lot, but for the purpose of business, there are (usually) 6 bullets:

admit      accept

           suggest     promise      
     

explain    claim

Sentences & Verbs (2)


This summer I went some kind of diving in Bali with my family.  When we were done, I talked to a diving coach, in English.  We chatted and chatted.  Yet, all of a sudden, something popped into my mind.  What is that something?  In our conversation, I found something, something that is unique to most Asian languages.  What is it?  There is a missing baby.



A. What is a Missing Baby (Verb)?



Read our conversation and you will know what I am talking about.



Me
You live here, right?  So what do you think about Bali?
Coach
Bali good.  People nice.

Me
Yes, coaches here are good and nice too.  


So you may ask: What is the problem with saying Bali good instead of 'Bali is good'.  There will not be any problem if you don't want to speed up your learning of English.



B. Three Types of Verbs  


If you want to enhance your proficiency in English, both written and spoken, (there is) one thing you can't afford to miss:


Types of Verbs












If you think I am going to give you some grammatical terms that are boring and dry, well think again. There are funny names for the three types of verbs in English, namely:







Type 1
Baby Verbs











e.g. is/am/are/was/were/been
Type 2
 
 Non-Baby Verbs








e.g. run a business, develop a program, discuss an issue
Type 3
    
Helping Verbs

Can you name the three types of verbs?     







For this post the focus is on the first type of verbs: Baby Verbs.  Why do I call them Baby Verbs? Well, they do 'almost nothing'.  What do I mean by 'almost nothing'?  They (Baby Verbs) are just something sticky, so sticky that they link the left with the right, as shown below.




Left
+
Right

These entrepreneurs             < -------   are   ------->     (digitally) smart.



Well (being) sticky is nothing special, why do you have to care about them?






C. The Mermaid Structure


It is because there is another thing about sentence structures of English.  What is it?  It has something to do with diving too.  Before you get the answer, check out the following mermaid.







What do you see?  Now look at it again from another angle (perspective):








Do you see that?  What?  The mermaid is 'divided' into three parts.  So what is my point?  You can break a sentence in English into three parts?  Which three: Head, Body, and Tail.   So do you think you can give the following sentence a go?  Break it into three.


Creating a new business model is not so easy. 




When you break it into three parts, you will find that 'creating' is not a verb.  Instead, 'is' the sticky thing, the Baby Verb, is the verb of the sentence.



HEAD
BODY
TAIL
Creating a new business model
is
not so easy.


The problem of Missing Babies becomes more serious if you try to make a long sentence (at a meeting):


Head
Body 
    |Tail
What I am going to present today
Missing Baby Verb
(is)
a plan to change the world














So for the sake of easy memory, we will give the structure a name: Hot Mermaid (Head, Body, & Tail).

Sentence & Verb (1)

3 questions for you.


Is English your mother tongue?  Do your parents talk to you in English all the time? Do you think English sentences are something easy to master? If your answers to the questions are negative, then this post is important to you.  


How?


It will probably change the ways you think about English sentences.  








Yet, don’t just sit where you are.  This post asks you to finish two tasks that are dangerous.  You have to be a superhero or super heroine so you must get changed. So are you ready now?













But wait a minute, before you transform yourself, there a sentence for you:


Our company planned to develop a new product.




I guess it’s easy to understand the meaning of the sentence, but the questions are:




     What is ‘to expand’? Is it the same as ‘expand’?

to develop VS develop


     Is there anything wrong with:


Our company planned developed a new product.






It is absolutely wrong to put 'planned developed' together in a sentence.  












What’s Wrong with Two Verbs Coming Together?

But why is it wrong?  Why can’t we put two verbs together (in a sentence)? Before you know why, there are 2 problems for you to solve:



1. A Crash of Two Cars (Verbs)

2. A House with Two Wives (Verbs)



Problem 1Crash of Two Cars (Verbs)


Now you are a superhero or super heroine walking on a street.  Do you know the name of the street?

The Street of Sentence



You may imagine that a sentence is like a one-way street and verbs are like cars.   What happens if two cars from opposite directions running into each other at full speed? 



So to prevent any car accidents (crash) from happening, you, the hero or heroine, have to do something about it. What is it?  You are going to get the answers after you have read the details of the second ‘accident’, a tougher one:



 Problem 2: House with Two Wives (Verbs)







This time, there are two ladies sitting in one house. They chat and chat and chat and chat.  They find out that they have lots of things in common, like the same models of mobile phones and taste for clothes.   Yet, what they don’t want to know but finally find out is: they share the same husband.





So what is the point?  My point is: An English sentence is like a house. It can’t have two wives (two verbs) in it.  So, what can you do to stop the fight? You will do something about it, right?  You have to think different, not about women, but about English.  You have to group verbs into two types:


Big Verbs
&
Small Verbs 






What are Big Verbs & Small Verbs?

Although men think that sizes matter, in the world of English it is different.  Big Verbs and Small Verbs have nothing to do with their sizes. 


Big Verbs are only verbs that come first in a sentence, pretty much like a first-born child in a family.   In other words, a sentence is like a family, in which a first born child is privileged (given special rights). 


That is, a verb can be big or small, depending on its position in a sentence  





Any verb that comes first in a sentence is a big one; any verb that comes next is a small one.
(If you want some grammar terms, Big Verbs are finite verbs and Small Verbs are non-finite.)  So in the sentence, ‘Our company planned to develop a new product’


planned’ is a Big Verb, and

to expand’ is a Small Verb.





Big Verb
Small Verb

Our company
planned
to develop
a new product.




So to get the point of Big Verbs and Small Verbs, you may visualize sentences. 


Whenever you read a sentence, try to look for the first verb (Big Verb) and then the second verb (Small Verb).  









For example, the following sentence will be something different.


We plan to reduce our budget on travel allowances.  

                                               

We plan to reduce our budget on travel allowances.  

                                                                       
                                               

                                   
plan           to reduce


Well, are we done?  Not so soon.  More about Big and Small Verbs are to come.      








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Pic Sources:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/lorenkerns/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/diloz/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/89619746@N02/
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http://www.flickr.com/photos/cnon/