IELTS Writing - building complex sentences

Our Facebook page recently offered some interesting facts about Vietnam, and there was a quiz...

Here are the answers:

1) At 331,210km, Vietnam is almost twice as big as Cambodia
b) it is around half the size of Myanmar (Burma).

2) French and Chinese are spoken in Vietnam,
a) English is becoming a popular second language too.

3) There are about 87 million people who speak Vietnamese today: 84 million of them live in Vietnam
f) the others are located in different places around the world.

4) International music is well-known in Vietnam.
d) Vietnamese pop (known as “V-pop”) is also very popular in the country.

5)The Red River Delta in Vietnam has a smaller geographical area than the Mekong Delta,
e) it has a larger population.

6) Vietnam’s national economy expanded by 5% in 2012.
c) its GDP grew to just under $1600 per person.

There are a few simple but effective rules in IELTS writing. Here is one of them:

If you write more complex sentences, you could increase your score.

However, this comes with a warning:

If you write more complex sentences, you could increase your English mistakes.

The “Grammar” category of the IELTS Writing score sheet requires that a high-level student

• uses a variety of complex structures

and
• produces frequent error-free sentences

In this blog, we’ll slowly learn how to build complex structure sentences. We’ll also begin to look at how to avoid errors, logically organise information and write in different tenses. These are all on the IELTS examiner’s score sheet when (s)he sits down and corrects your exam.

There are many, many ways to build a complex sentence, but there are 2 basic methods:

1. Use a long subject and/or a long object.

Any simple English sentence is made up of 3 parts:

1. subject	2. verb	3. object
I	like	ice-cream.
Barack Obama	watched	“Titanic”.
We	have seen	the movie.
Vietnamese people	speak	Vietnamese.

We can make the subject or the object longer by using a defining relative clause.

A defining relative clause uses the word which, who, where or whose to give information which defines a person, thing or place.

For example, we know Barack Obama is the president of the United States of America. We also know that Titanic stars Leonardo di Caprio. So we could change sentence 2:

1. subject	2. verb	3. object
The man who is president of the United States of America	watched	a movie which stars Leonardo di Caprio and Kate Winslet.

This is a strange sentence in English, but the grammar is quite good – and it shows you how we can make a very long sentence. Here is another example:

1. subject	2. verb	3. object
Males and females who were born in Vietnam	speak	a language which is many hundreds of years old.

You may find it difficult to produce sentences with long subjects and objects. If you practice it, you will succeed! Anyway, in IELTS Reading and Listening, you are tested on your ability to understand long sentences just like these.
Let’s now look at 2 more ways to build long sentences in English...

2. Use linkers to connect 2 simple sentences.

In the Facebook quiz, we made 6 pairs of sentences. The two sentences were related, for example...

1) At 331,210km2, Vietnam is almost twice as big as Cambodia
b) it is around half the size of Myanmar (Burma).

Sentences 1) and b) are related because they both talk about the size of Vietnam.
They also disagree with each other in a way. The first sentence tells you that Vietnam is bigger than Cambodia, but the second sentence tells you that Vietnam is smaller than Myanmar. Here is another example of two sentences which disagree with each other:

The weather during the day is hot.The weather at night is cold.

A long sentence which contains two simple sentences is called a compound sentence.
We can connect these two sentences, making them one compound sentence, with one word:

The weather during the day is hot 

but 

the weather at night is cold.

The word “but” has two purposes: 1) it connects the two sentences, and 2) it tells you that the first sentence disagrees with the second sentence.
It’s essential to remember that “but” is written between the 2 simple sentences. If you’re an IELTS student, you should never write “but” at the start of a sentence.
There are other words which do this, and which go in the middle of two simple sentences:

sentence 1	linker	sentence 2
The weather during the day is hot	but	the weather at night is cold.
International music is well-known in Vietnam	while	V-pop is also very popular in the country.
Vietnam is almost twice as big as Cambodia	whereas	it is around half the size of Myanmar (Burma).

There are words which do the same 2 jobs (they connect 2 sentences, and they tell you that the first sentence disagrees with the second sentence) but these words are written before the two sentences.

linker	sentence 1	sentence 2
Though	the weather is hot during the day,	it [the weather] is cold at night.
Although	international music is well-known in Vietnam,	V-pop is also very popular in the country.
Even though	Vietnam is almost twice as big as Cambodia,	it is around half the size of Myanmar (Burma).

Many students ask about the word “however”. This does have the same meaning as “but”. It’s different because it can’t be used in a compound sentence like this. It should appear at the start of sentence 2.

sentence 1	sentence 2
The weather during the day is hot.	However, the weather at night is cold.

Some students also ask about “despite” or “in spite of”. This has the same meaning as “but”, and it appears with a noun before a simple sentence:

sentence 1

Despite the rain, London is a wonderful city. In spite of the late taxi, we arrived at the airport on time.

2b. Connect sentences which agree with each other

Let’s look at two more answers to our Vietnam-themed Facebook quiz:

2) French and Chinese are spoken in Vietnam,
a) English is becoming a popular second language too.

3) There are about 87 million people who speak Vietnamese today: 84 million of them live in Vietnam
f) the others are located in different places around the world.

Sentences 2) and a) are related because they both talk about the size of Vietnam. They also agree with each other. The second sentence “helps” the first sentence by giving extra information and by not contradicting it. The same relationship exists between Sentences 3) and f), and these two sentences:

IELTS is a difficult exam. 

IELTS causes stress.

If we used “but” to connect 2 sentences which disagree with each other, what word could we use to connect 2 sentences which agree with each other?

The answer shouldn’t be difficult: and.

IELTS is a difficult exam

and 

IELTS causes stress.

Like “but”, you should never use “and” at the start of a sentence. 

sentence 1	linker	sentence 2
IELTS is a difficult exam	and	it causes stress.

Other words have the same meaning as “and”. These words are great in an IELTS writing exam, but they must go at the start of a second simple sentence (like “however”)

sentence 1	sentence 2
IELTS is a difficult exam.	Moreover, it causes stress.
84 million Vietnamese speakers live in Vietnam.	Also, others are located in different places around the world.
French and Chinese are spoken in Vietnam.	Additionally, English is becoming a popular second language.

“Too” is a popular synonym for “and”, having the same meaning. It can be used at the end of a second simple sentence. (e.g. “French is spoken in Vietnam. English is becoming popular too.”)
If you use “too” a lot in an IELTS exam, the examiner will probably think that you are an intermediate-level student; he or she is more likely to give you a score between 4.5 and 6.

And finally...

The English language is very complicated. There are many ways to make a compound sentence: these are three popular and effective ways. You should study real-English texts (the news, for example, or literature) and analyse each sentence to see how it is made up.

Now that you know three ways to make a complex sentence, here are some activities to try:

ACTIVITY 1

Match the nouns to their definitions:

NOUN		DEFINITION
1)	The USA	a)	The president of Russia
2)	Vladamir Putin	b)	The language which is spoken all over the world
3)	The iPhone 5s	c)	The country which is south of Canada
4)	English	d)	Apple’s most recent product

Next, re-write these complex sentences using defining relative clauses.

SIMPLE SENTENCE	COMPLEX SENTENCE
0) Vietnamese people speak Vietnamese	Males and females who were born in Vietnam speak a language which is many hundreds of years old.
1) The USA sent soldiers to Afghanistan.
2) Vladamir Putin enjoys reading Russian literature.
3) The iPhone 5s is popular in Asia.
4) English allows you to communicate worldwide.

ACTIVITY 2

Write 6 simple sentences which describe good things about your country. (e.g. “The food in Italy is great.”) Connect them using linkers.

Write 6 simple sentences which describe negative things about your country. (e.g. “Many Irish people drink too much.”) Connect them with any sentence from the first group using linkers.

ACTIVITY 3 NEW!

You can use this exercise to:

a) practice using complex sentences, and

b) practice interpreting information (like in IELTS Writing Task 1)

Yang Liu, who is a talented artist, was born in China but grew up in Germany. Using images, she contrasts the differences between the two cultures. Here is one of her beautiful infographs, showing German culture (in blue) and Chinese culture (in red):

The message of this picture is:

German people are independent,
but
Chinese people tend to depend on each other.

We can try to express this in a more complex way with a word like “whereas”, “however”, etc. (see section 2. above):

Whereas German people are independent,
Chinese people tend to depend on each other.

OR

German people are independent.
However, Chinese people tend to depend on each other.

To practice the language from section 2. , have fun playing around with these infographs!