Simplification

So we’ve talked about now an exercise that can help us think about syntax how we organize our sentences how we can fit words that we know together into a coherent story.

Now this exercise the simplification exercise is all about forcing ourselves to find the simple way to explain something.

In fact much of natural English especially natural spoken English is quite simple.

People often speak very simply.

So when you look at something that’s written down and you say Wow it’s very long and complicated it is certainly possible and even likely that that can be actually said in a much simpler way.

We’re going to do that now.

OK.

Now the one we’re going to look at is not actually very good but you could also do this for literature for example if you read a page of a book that’s kind of complicated.

You can take that paragraph from that book and simplify it boil it down.

We often when we talk about simplifying things we talk about boiling it down to its simplest form.

So let’s play around with this.

And this is really play.

I consider this to be play.

The more you can play with English and play with language the more comfortable that you’ll be.

And then you’re going to be more creative when you want to express your ideas and speak.

You’re going to be able to express yourself creatively simply and clearly.

OK.

So it was Christmas I spent the day with my family.

We opened presence together and made a big meal.

The meal was delicious.

We had a great day together.

Christmas is my favorite holiday.

So this is filled with a lot of redundant language.

Something is redundant.

That means it’s really doesn’t need to be said.

OK.

So how do we eat a big meal.

The meal was delicious.

OK we said meal twice.

That’s not so good.

Christmas is my favorite holiday.

Well if we’re talking about how great Christmas is do we need to say that it’s our favorite.

OK.

I spent the day with my family.

We opened presents together and had a big meal.

It just sounds a little weird because the sentences are maybe too short.

The syntax is not great.

And there’s a bit of repetition in words.

A bit of redundancy so stop the lesson here.

Try your own try to try three different ones and see what you can come up with.

I’m going to try to variations to simplifications of the original text and see how close your eyes are to mine if they’re not like mine.

That’s totally ok.

There are many ways to do this.

Just see how well you can do it and then come back.

All right here we go.

My first one.

Let’s see.

My family my family and I had a great time.

Opening presents together on Christmas after a big delicious meal.

Wow you’ve said pretty much everything there.

My family and I had a great time.

Opening presents together on Christmas after a big delicious meal.

One sentence and we’ve said pretty much everything that’s been said here.

And so we’ve removed a lot of the redundancy and it’s very clear even though it’s a lot simpler I would say this is way better than the original.

Way way better.

OK then we could add maybe four four syntax.

We can add one sentence.

It’s my favorite holiday.

Christmas is my favorite holiday.

So you have this very long sentence that says everything we want to say and then it’s my favorite holiday.

A very simple sentence to give us some variation in our sentence style.

And if it’s not there I think it’s OK because we can kind of get a feeling that it’s it’s your favorite holiday.

It’s actually not my favorite holiday by the way my favorite holiday is a very silly holiday that my family and I invented which we call Hanks giving.

I just write that down.

It’s a ridiculous thing.

We invented it.

It’s called Hanks giving not Thanksgiving.

So there’s an American holiday called Thanksgiving.

Well we celebrate one called Hanks giving.

And if you know there’s a famous actor his name is Tom Hanks.

So on Hanks giving.

We get our friends together my family and I.

And we watch Tom Hanks movies.

We play games Tom Hanks related games.

We have trivia.

It’s very weird.

It’s very strange but we have a lot of fun.

It’s quite interesting.

It’s quite interesting.

Hanks giving something that only my family does it’s not normal for sure.

OK.

So let’s try one more of these and see if we can do another interesting variation variation.

OK here we go.

I spent I spent I spent this Christmas with my family and we’ll just make that a simple sentence.

I don’t want to say that long sentence equals good sentence.

That’s not true.

So you can have short sentences long sentences they can all be good sentences after a huge tasty meal.

We all had a great time opening presence together.

So now this one is a bit different because the sentences are about the same length but I would say it’s no better or worse than the other one the first one we did.

Now where could we put.

It’s my favorite holiday.

If we want to put that in so we could put my favorite holiday at the end but we could also use which I spent this Christmas comma which is my favorite holiday comma with my family.

We could do that.

That is something that you can do to add information to a sentence and it’s really really useful.

You can do it with people.

You can do it with things.

If it’s a thing then usually you use which if it’s a person you’ll use who.

I’ll just give you a very quick example of how to do that just so you know so that you can use it in the future.

Let’s make two short sentences.

My uncle is a doctor.

My uncle lives in Canada.

OK.

To have two sentences this and this.

These two are the same.

So we don’t want to say both of those we can replace this with who or which person my uncle.

So we should say who not which.

OK.

So here’s what we do.

We take this one and we put it right there and then we add comma Hu comma or comma which comma very simple we could do it the other way to my uncle comma who is a doctor comma can if it’s a thing we would just say which there is my favorite holiday lives in Canada we change nothing about this sentence or this sentence we just take this sentence and into the other sentence using who or which if it’s a thing we could go the other way we could say my uncle who lives in Canada is a doctor this is so easy.

So whenever you want to add information you can use this general grammar structure it allows you to put in things about a person or a thing in a way which really you don’t have to think much about and when when should we put lives in Canada.

Inside is a doctor.

When should we do that instead of the other way.

Well I would say the main sentence is probably more important.

So my Cole lives in Canada is probably the most important thing we want to say.

My uncle who is a doctor.

That’s just extra information so I usually put the extra information inside the two commas.

It’s called a comma.

By the way a do you put the extra information there and then the main sentence is usually the more important thing.

So these two exercises completing sentences by taking out key words from an article and then making a story stitching them together and then simplifying a paragraph from an article or a novel or whatever and doing several simplified variations of that.

These are two powerful ways to get you to think more creatively in English and the more you do it the more powerful you’re going to feel when you get into a situation you need to express yourself.

You’re going to be able to put your words together a little bit more easily and that’s going to allow you to come across or speak more naturally you’ll find your words more easily and you’ll be able to stick them together without really thinking about it.

If you practice this enough practice is extremely important.

You’ve got knowledge but you also need to practice it you’ve got to build the right habits.

Gotta get comfortable in English you’ve got to do exercises.

So for an assignment.

Here are a couple of examples of very very short words that you can fit together into a sentence or a couple sentences.

Very simple.

OK.

Now once you’ve done these and you feel like it’s pretty easy go a step further get an article from the newspaper or a book or whatever and do the exercises that we learned in this lesson do them several times when you choose one to do for simplification try 10 variations if you can.

I want to emphasize it’s very important to play play and having fun with it making it funny right.

Doing it a little differently.

Changing the style especially for the second one is really really important.

English can be actually a lot of fun if you jump in and swim around.

So go practice.

Good luck.