 English sentence structure, four types of sentences, from espressoenglish.net. A simple sentence contains one independent clause. What's an independent clause? It's one subject, followed by one verb or verb phrase. It expresses a single idea. Here are some examples of simple sentences. I'm happy. Robert doesn't eat meat. My brother and I went to the mall last night. This new laptop computer has already crashed twice. The subjects of these sentences are in blue, and the verbs in these sentences are in red. A compound sentence has two independent clauses, joined by a linking word, such as and, but, or, so, yet, and, however. Each independent clause could be a sentence by itself, but we connect them with a linking word. For example, I'm happy, but my kids are always complaining. We have two independent clauses. I'm happy. My kids are always complaining. You can see that we have two subjects in blue and two verbs in red, and the two independent clauses are linked by the word but. That's the linking word. It's in green. Here are more examples. Robert doesn't eat meat, so Barbara made a special vegetarian dish for him. My brother and I went to the mall last night, but we didn't buy anything. This new laptop computer has already crashed twice, and I have no idea why. Notice that all these sentences have two subjects, two verbs, and a linking word. Let's look at a complex sentence. A complex sentence has one independent clause and one or more dependent clauses. A dependent clause cannot be a complete sentence by itself. Here are some examples. The dependent clause is in purple. I'm happy, even though I don't make much money. Robert, a friend I've known since high school, doesn't eat meat. After getting home from work, my brother and I went to the mall last night. This new laptop computer, which I bought yesterday, has already crashed twice. Finally, we have a compound complex sentence. These sentences contain three or more clauses, two independent clauses, and at least one dependent clause. Let's look at some examples. The independent clauses are in blue. The dependent clauses are in purple, and the linking word is in green. I'm happy, even though I don't make much money, but my kids are always complaining since we can't afford to buy the newest toys. Robert, a friend I've known since high school, doesn't eat meat, so Barbara made a special vegetarian dish for him. After getting home from work, my brother and I went to the mall last night while my sister stayed home and studied. This new laptop computer, which I bought yesterday, has already crashed twice. However, I have no idea why. You can get feedback on your writing inside my Advanced English Grammar course. It has 45 detailed lessons plus writing tasks with teacher feedback. Click on the link in the video or in the description for more information.