Using proper English punctuation shows that you are a sophisticated and intelligent writer. Also, using punctuation improperly can often change the meaning of your sentence. In this lesson, I will teach you how to use two key punctuation marks: the colon and semicolon. The colon is made of two dots and has three uses in writing. The semicolon is made up of a dot and comma and has three different uses in writing. Even native English speakers often use these punctuation marks improperly. But I guarantee that after watching this video, you will master them fully. You'll even get a chance to practise by doing the quiz afterwards at [ Ссылка ]

Next, why don't you watch my lesson on how to be a better writer:
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TRANSCRIPT

Welcome back to engVid with me, Benjamin. Today's lesson is a writing one that is going to really show that you are a sophisticated writer. That means that you are intelligent and that you've got a good understanding of English grammar because you can use these two key punctuation marks. Introducing on my right the semi-colon. Looks a little bit like this, comma with a full stop on top (;), and on my left the colon. No, I'm not talking about your posterior; I am talking about this: Dot, dot (:). Okay.

First the semi-colon. What's it used for? A semi-colon is used to replace a conjunction or full stop. Okay? So rather than lots of boring, short sentences, I spice things up by putting in a semi-colon. What it does is it connects two closely related ideas. So, instead of saying: "They love chocolate."-full stop-"I can't stand it." or: "They love chocolate, and I can't stand it", you put a semi-colon in there. It just... It just gives it better effect. It's just... It's just more interesting the way it sounds and the way it looks on the page. Second way in which we use a semi-colon: To separate items in a list. For example, this is talking about a pudding that I'm making, a dessert if you don't use this English word, here. "For the pudding, I need:" Okay? Spot the colon; we'll talk about that in a moment. Now we are putting the semi-colons to separate the ingredients for the pudding. "Berries, fresh summer ones;" okay? So that's one... It's the berries, this is the description of the berries. Okay? I put the semi-colon after I finish talking about the berries. "...milk", now let's give a little bit of detail about the milk: "full-fat milk;" always tastier. Okay? Put a semi-colon after that. "...a new whisk, because I stood on the last", okay? "...and", okay? So we don't need a semi-colon here because we're using "and", and then you put the final secret ingredient.

Let's move over to the colon. Colons introduce lists, like we have just seen here: "This is what I need for my pudding:" dong, dong dong, now I'm going to put my list. Colons isolate words to create emphasis. "He knew what he was feeling: fear." You might want to have a look at my lesson on suspense and tension writing, because we cover lots of sentences like this. Colons also introduce quotes. So if you're doing an academic essay, and you're saying: "Idea, idea, idea, idea, idea", oo, now I need to take someone else's idea and write, and sort of put it in speech marks. Before you use that person's words, yup, you use the colon. Okay? So if I was writing an essay about Shakespeare, just before I used Shakespeare's words, I would put the colon. Okay, we're going to look at a passage now and we're going to think about when we should use a semi-colon and when we should use a colon.

So here we are with a little passage that I have just written for you. I'll read it out to you. As I'm reading it, I want you to think of where the semi-colons and colons should go. "You need to do three things to be successful in English, practice with native speakers, learn and revise your vocab, and master your grammar. It helps enormously to visit the U.K., you'll understand the culture. Together we can achieve fluency, together we can grow." Hmm. What do we think about that? Okay, so let's have a look. "You need to do three things to be successful in English", and then it starts saying what those things are. So what we have here is the start of a list. Remember: If you're introducing a list, you need to put a colon. There we are, a colon to introduce my list. Now we have three things that we need to do to get better at English. What do we do to separate items in a list? That's right, you put your semi-colon, so we'll just put a dot there, one there, and then you don't need one here. "It helps enormously to visit the U.K., you'll understand the culture." So, this here we're starting an explanation, we're giving an important reason, so I would say that a colon is required there. […]

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