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Hellow, Today we are going to talk about noun clauses.
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before we talk about noun clauses, we need to talk about nouns.
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and the three jobs that a noun has. ..so the first thing that a noun can do in
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a sentence, it could be the subject of a sentence. It could be the object of the sentence.
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It could also be the object of a preposition. Let's look at an example.
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First, let's look at this video. Hey, how was school today?
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Blah, blah, blah blah. ...so the question....'what did he say?'
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so I have used the noun here... answer 'his was difficult to understand.
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In this situation 'answer' is the noun...it's the subject of the sentence.
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a noun could also be the object of a verb. Here I have 'I didn't understand his answer'.
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'answer' is the object of the verb . and then a noun could also be the object of
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a preposition. Here, 'I was confused about his answer.'
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'about' is the preposition. 'answer' is the object of the preposition.
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Sop..these are the three jobs of a noun in a sentence. It could be the subject. It could
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be the object of the verb. It could be the object of a preposition.
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Now we will move on to talk about noun clauses. Before we go any further, let me just explain
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a clause is a subject verb combination. So a noun clause is a subject verb combination
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that acts as a noun. So if we remember this sentence, 'his answer
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was difficult to understand.' 'answer' is the subject.
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I have just about the same meaning with this....'what he said was difficult to understand.'
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In this situation 'what he said' is a noun clause. I have 'what' the question word. and
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the subject 'he'.... and the verb 'said.' ..so that whole clause 'what he said' is the
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subject of the sentence. the subject of the verb 'was'.
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In that situation, it is the subject of the verb.
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One thing to point out about noun clauses...is that the form is a little bit different from
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questions. If you look at my question here...'what did
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he say?' for people learning English , this is very
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difficult because we have the question word and then we have the helping verb 'did' and
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then we have the subject and then the main verb.
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'what did he say?' Students work very hard to get that pattern
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correctly because they have to put the helping verb before the subject.
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ok...so...the regular order for questions, question word, helping verb, subject, main
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verb. With a noun clause, it's a little bit different...
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If you can see....first...here's my question...'what did he say...'
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with the noun clause it is 'what he said'....so it becomes the question word, the subject,
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and then the verb. So after they have worked very hard to get
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this pattern, they need to come back and get this pattern for noun clauses. question work
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subject, then verb. let's take a look at noun clauses in other
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parts of the sentence. let's look at the noun clause as the object
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of the sentence. 'I didn't understand his answer.' in that
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situation 'answer' is the object. and here, 'I didn't understand what he said.'
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...'what he said' is the object of the sentence...it's a noun clause.
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Now we look at the noun clause as the object of the preposition ...
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If we look at this sentence, 'I was confused about his answer. 'about' is the preposition.
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'answer' is the object.' I can use a noun clause to get the same idea.....'I
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was confused about what he said'....'about' is the preposition.
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'what he said' is the noun clause. let's look at another example based on another
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video. this is the video of 'where did he go?'
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"hey are you finished in there?" "hey,,,oh, no ,,,where did he go?"
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Yes, the question 'where did he go?' who knows? so...'where did he go' is the question. It
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has the question word 'where' the helping verb 'did'...the subject 'he' and the main
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verb 'go'. I can change that to a noun clause. 'I don't
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know where he went'...'where he went' is the object of the sentence.
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and it's the object the verb 'know'. Let's try one more example. I have the question,
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"what does he eat for breakfast?" is the question....helping verb, subject,
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main verb...'what does he eat' and when I change it to a noun clause, 'what
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he eats for breakfast is unhealthy'. so in this situation I have the question word
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'what' , the helping verb 'does', the subject, 'he, and then the main verb 'eats.'
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That was a brief introduction to noun clauses and how they work in sentences. thank you
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very much.