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  • Hi.

  • Welcome to www.engvid.com. I'm Adam.

  • In today's video we're going to look at participles.

  • Now, this is a little bit more advanced grammar, but it's very useful and it's used in everyday

  • speaking, but especially for writing and reading because you're going to see participles everywhere.

  • What participles do is they help you get sentence variety, they help you make your sentences

  • shorter, if necessary, they give you a little bit of style.

  • Okay?

  • There are two participles that we need to look at, they are called the active or passive participle.

  • Sometimes you'll see them as present or past participle.

  • Past participles, you're familiar with.

  • Sometimes they're called the verb three, so: "eat", past tense "ate", past participle is "eaten".

  • Right?

  • So that's the participle.

  • Now, especially with the "ing" you have to be careful because "ing" words, although they

  • are verbs with "ing", they can be pretty much anything.

  • They could be a gerund, as you know, so they're nouns; they could be part of the continuous

  • verb, so "be going", so: "I am going", it's a continuous action; but "ing" words can also

  • be adjectives and adverbs.

  • When they are adjectives and adverbs they are actually participles.

  • So it's very important to recognize them and know how to use them.

  • So what I want to do first is I want to look at the adjective participles.

  • Now, what you have to remember about adjective participles, they are...

  • They are reduced adjective clauses.

  • You know an adjective clause, it's meant to modify a noun.

  • It identifies it or gives extra information about a noun.

  • A participle, an adjective participle is that adjective clause minus the subject and the verb.

  • Okay? But we're going to look at that in a second.

  • So let's look at this sentence first.

  • Oh, sorry, let me...

  • I made a little mistake here.

  • "Dressed in his class-A uniform, the marine looked like a recruitment poster."

  • So this is the passive or the past participle ending in "ed", it's a regular verb, so: "dressed".

  • "Dressed in his class-A uniform".

  • Now, if I rearrange the sentence, really, it says:

  • "The marine, who was dressed in his class-A uniform, looked like a recruitment poster."

  • Okay?

  • Like a poster that wants people to join the marines, etc.

  • But I can take that adjective clause, I get rid of the "who was" or "who is", depending

  • on the tense.

  • Get rid of that, and I'm left with a participle phrase.

  • Now, I can take that participle phrase and move it to the beginning of the sentence,

  • just like I have here.

  • The key when you're using participles at the beginning...

  • A participle phrase at the beginning of a sentence, you must make sure that the subject,

  • which is not there but it is understood: who was, who is the marine,

  • so the marine who was dressed in his class-A,

  • and then the subject of the independent clause must be the same subject.

  • Okay?

  • We're going to look at a couple more examples.

  • "Standing near the window, Marie could see the entire village."

  • Look at the other example: "Standing near the window, the entire village was in view."

  • Now, many people will look at both sentences and think:

  • "Yeah, okay, I understand them. They're both correct."

  • This sentence is incorrect.

  • Why?

  • Because the subject here is "the village".

  • Can the village stand near the window?

  • No, it can't.

  • So: "Standing near the window" means Marie.

  • "Marie, who was standing near the window, could see the entire village."

  • This subject cannot do this action, so you have to make sure that the implied or the

  • understood subject in the participle is the exact same as the subject of the independent

  • clause that follows it.

  • Okay?

  • That's very, very important.

  • So now what we're going to do, I'm going to look at a few more examples and I want to

  • show you that you can start the sentence with a participle phrase, but you can also leave

  • it in the middle of the sentence.

  • Okay? Let's look at that.

  • Okay, let's look at these examples now and you'll see the different positions the participles

  • can take.

  • And again, we're talking about participle phrases for the most part.

  • "The jazz musician, known for his tendency to daydream, got into a zone and played for an hour straight."

  • Okay?

  • So what we're doing here, we're giving you a little bit more information about the musician.

  • We're not identifying him.

  • We're giving you extra information, which is why we have the commas.

  • Because if this was a...

  • If this were a regular adjective clause, it would be a non-identifying adjective clause

  • and I would have...

  • The tense is not important.

  • It can be both.

  • "He is known" or "He was known", depending on the situation.

  • "Who was known", but whenever I have the relative pronoun of the adjective clause working also

  • as the subject, and I have a "be" verb, I can take them both out and leave only the

  • participle and whatever else comes with it.

  • If we have a participle and it's only the participle with nothing else after it, that

  • becomes the adjective and it goes before the noun, but I'll show you that after.

  • So this basically is telling you something about the musician, so it comes in the middle.

  • Now, in this sentence: "The woman talking to Jeff is his sister."

  • The woman who is talking to Jeff is his sister.

  • Now I'm identifying the woman, so I don't have a comma here because it's an identifying

  • adjective clause and I take out the relative pronoun subject, and again, the "be" verb.

  • Now, don't get me wrong.

  • You can make participles with other verbs beside the "be" verb, but we're going to look

  • at that another time.

  • For now this is just the basic structure, the basic way to make participles.

  • And again, identifying the woman.

  • Remember, when we're...

  • When we leave the participle inside a sentence then it's going to come right after the noun

  • it's modifying.

  • So you don't have to worry too much about making sure the subjects agree.

  • When you put it at the beginning make sure that the subjects agree,

  • with the implied subject, anyway.

  • "The station chief was fired, meaning there's an open position."

  • Open position means, like, a job you can apply for.

  • Now, here, again: "which means".

  • Basically, again, I have the relative pronoun, that's also the subject.

  • I have an active verb.

  • I squeeze them both together and I get a participle.

  • The "which" refers to the entire independent clause.

  • Okay?

  • So it doesn't have to be a "be" verb, it can be other verbs, too.

  • But, again, I'll show you construction in another time because it's a little bit more tricky.

  • You can't do it with every adjective clause.

  • You can't do it.

  • But this "meaning" is about the entire independent clause and it comes after the comma, because

  • again, it's not an identifying adjective clause and it ends the sentence.

  • Now, before I mentioned that if you don't have anything after...

  • Right.

  • So if I have, for example: "The broken window".

  • "The broken window was fixed."

  • So imagine the window that was broken, "that" out, "was" out, all I have is "broken".

  • I don't have a whole phrase.

  • So when I have only one-word participle, when I only have the one word left over after the

  • reduction, then I just treat it like a regular adjective and I put it before the noun.

  • Okay.

  • And I can do it with an "ing" as well.

  • Okay.

  • So far so good.

  • Now we're going to look at adverbs where it gets a little bit more confusing.

  • Okay, so now we're going to look at participles used as adverbs.

  • So, again, it's very important to understand: What's the difference between an adjective

  • clause and an adverb clause?

  • An adjective clause modifies a noun, it gives you extra information about it or it identifies it.

  • An adverb clause shows you a relationship between the adverb clause itself and the independent clause.

  • Same thing with the participle because an adverb participle phrase is also a reduced clause,

  • it's a reduced adverb clause, but it works in the same way which sometimes can

  • be a little bit confusing.

  • So let's look at the examples.

  • "Given the choice, most people would probably choose good health over good fortune."

  • So right now you can say: "Most people who are given a choice would probably choose",

  • you could say that.

  • You could tell me about which people, or you can show me the relationship about when they

  • would make this choice.

  • Now, this would give you a hint: "would choose".

  • It's a hypothetical.

  • So, technically, this is:

  • "If they were given the choice, most people would probably choose..."

  • So this is a conditional adverb clause reduced to a conditional participle, adverb participle.

  • So you have your conjunction, your subject, and your verb all squeezed into the participle.

  • But again, the subject must agree.

  • Okay? There must be the same subject.

  • Even if you don't see the subject here, even though it's not a clause, there is no subject,

  • it's a phrase, there is an implied...

  • An implied or a suggested subject in that participle, and that's the key to remembering

  • and to using participles.

  • Here: "Realizing that the...

  • The..." Sorry.

  • "Realizing that the police were on to him, Bernie quickly moved his millions off shore."

  • Now, here is where you have a little bit of a problem.

  • This sentence, this participle could be an adjective or it could be an adverb.

  • When it's not entirely clear, most people will assume or will think of this as an adjective participle.

  • So, Bernie who realized that the police were on to him, quickly moved his millions off shore.

  • Or as he realized or because he realized that the police were on to him,

  • Bernie quickly moved his millions off shore.

  • Both of them are correct, both of them are okay.

  • But if you ever want to make very sure that your adverb participle is understood as an

  • adverb participle, sometimes add the conjunction.

  • You can have the participle, but add the conjunction just to make sure.

  • So if I say: "Delivering his speech to the council, Frank had a heart attack."

  • So, Frank, who was delivering his speech to the council, had a heart attack.

  • But I don't want you to understand that I'm saying something about Frank.

  • I'm not saying that.

  • I'm talking about what happened during the time.

  • So at the same time two things were happening, a longer action and a quick action:

  • Delivering his speech and had a heart attack.

  • So, I would add the conjunction "while" to make sure you understand that I'm focusing

  • on the adverb relationship, not modifying Frank with an adjective.

  • Okay?

  • If you're not sure use the conjunction.

  • Now: "She refused to cooperate while targeted by the media."

  • In some cases you have to include the conjunction.

  • "She refused to cooperate targeted by the media" doesn't make sense.

  • because if you have this as an adjective, then there must be a noun just before it.

  • But here we don't have a noun, we have a verb.

  • So right away we understand that it's an adverb clause, but we have to use the conjunction

  • because by itself it doesn't work.

  • It looks like it could be an adjective.

  • We want to make sure you understand it's an adverb so we add the conjunction, and then

  • we can use the participle.

  • "She refused to cooperate while she was targeted by the media."

  • Okay, so there you are, an introduction to participles.

  • I know they're a little bit confusing and a little bit tricky,

  • but they're used all the time.

  • And especially if you're going to be doing a reading, if you're going to be doing a test,

  • if you're in school and you need to read, if you just want to read newspapers because

  • newspapers use them a lot, they can make all their writing shorter, you have to understand

  • how participles work and you have to know how to use them yourself.

  • So, if you have any questions about this, please go to www.engvid.com, you can ask questions

  • there in the forum.

  • If you like this video, please subscribe to my YouTube channel.

  • Don't forget to take the quiz back at www.engvid.com.

  • And come again, see us soon and we'll have more lessons like this for you.

  • Thanks.

Hi.

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