PARALLEL STRUCTURE | English Lesson

hey everyone welcome to another English grammar lesson today we're going to be covering a concept called parallel structure so when you hear the word parallel you probably think of math right like parallel lines and the concept here is actually kind of the same in math two lines that are parallel are two lines that follow the same path without touching and pretty much look the same and believe it or not that's basically the same way it works with grammar parallel structure is when all of the words and phrases in a sentence follow the same pattern so to speak they're written in the same way let's look at a really basic example of this I enjoy hiking swimming and fishing so there are three words here that are all parallel that are all written the same way hiking swimming and fishing they're all written as gerunds as ing activities as things that you do so this is good this is parallel structure but what if I did this I enjoy hiking swimming and to fish well now these things are no longer parallel and my sentence is wrong let's look at another one she wants to go to college and get a job now this is also parallel my question for you is what two things are parallel here what are the things I'm actually looking at the answer is go to college and get a job those phrases are both written the same way go to colleges in action and get a job as an action and they're both written in the same tense so we're good let's try if you practice once Joey is studying music dance and how to make heart now what three things should be parallel here make a decision should be these three now of those three things which of them are already parallel with each other which ones are already written in the same way should have said music and dance so then how do we change this last part how do we change it so that it sounds just like music and dance well music is a noun and dances also a noun so we should just say art just art Joey is studying music dance and art next one then is a talented singer is good at speaking and writer okay so once again what things should be parallel here answer is reader is good at speaking and writer now of those three things which ones are already parallel the answer is these two okay so how do we change this middle part to make it parallel with the others well it's actually pretty simple we just say speaker Ben is a talented reader speaker and writer couple more Nick spends his days drinking Mountain Dew and he eats Doritos all right same question as always what things should be parallel here should have said drinking Mountain Dew and he eats Doritos now these are clearly not parallel and since there are only two of them you could technically change either one to make it match the other but the simplest one to change would be the second part and what would we change it to well we have an ING activity drinking Mountain Dew so we should change the second part to match that to become an ING activity as well which means eating Doritos now if you wanted to change the first part if you're really set on that you could but you'd have to change it to something like this Nick drinks Mountain Dew and he eats Doritos but again the best way to do it is to keep it as true as possible to the original sentence so that would mean changing the second part okay last one I picked up my things run out the door got in my car and drove off whoo yes okay longest one by far but we should already know that each of these four things should be parallel the question is are they well let's think about tense here past tense present tense and future tense which one of these is not in the same tense as the others well let's go one by one I picked up my things that's past tense hasn't it already happened I run out the door ooh present tense like right now I got in my car okay that's back to past tense I drove off also past tense so it looks like three of our verbs are all any past tense which means we need to change the last one to match the others so the question is how do we make a run past tense well simple we change it to ran so altogether the correct sentence reads I picked up my things ran out the door got in my car and drove off booyah cool well whether you came here for a refresher or just now learn this stuff for the first time I hope this video helped be sure to check out the free practice down in the description and we'll see you next time Thanks

Channel: Kevin Spaans

Views: 232,595

Keywords: parallel structure, parallel structure examples, what is parallel structure, parallel structure exercises, kevin spaans, english lesson, grammar lesson, how to use parallel structure, english grammar, grammar, parellelism

Id: fojkyh3qfHI

Length: 5min 28sec (328 seconds)

Published: Sun May 24 2020