🎤 Grammar for “Build a Sentence” — Noun Clauses
Hi everyone!
Thank you for joining Dr. Byrnes’ TOEFL Show 🎉
Today, we’re going to teach you the most important grammar element that will make TOEFL sentence-building questions much easier to solve—especially in the Writing section.
So, what’s today’s big idea?
👉 Noun clauses.
🧩 Spot the Clue: Why Is This a Noun Clause Question?
Take a look at these ETS sample sentence-building questions.
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| TOEFL Writing: Build a Sentence Questions |
All the words underlined in pink tell us something important:
👉 These sentences require noun clauses.
So now the real questions are:
What is a noun clause?
Why does it matter so much?
And how do we build noun clauses correctly?
Let’s break it down step by step.
🧠 First: How Many Types of Clauses Are There?
A clause is a group of words that has a subject and a verb.
Clauses can be:
Independent
Dependent
One independent clause by itself is a simple sentence.
A dependent clause cannot stand alone as a sentence, but it can function as an element inside a sentence.
In English, dependent clauses are divided into three types, based on their role in a sentence:
Noun clauses
Adjective clauses
Adverb clauses
Let’s review them quickly.
✨ Adjective Clauses
Adjective clauses describe nouns.
They are usually made with relative pronouns or relative adverbs such as:
who, which, that, where
Examples:
The house that I live in is cozy.
The house where I live is cozy.
These clauses answer the questions:
👉 Which one?
👉 What kind?
⏰ Adverb Clauses
Adverb clauses describe actions.
They are made with subordinating conjunctions like:
when, because, although
Examples:
When it rains, I stay home.
Because it’s raining, I will stay.
They tell us:
👉 when, why, how, or under what condition something happens.
⭐ Noun Clauses (Today’s Star!)
Adjective clauses and adverb clauses are modifiers.
They are not essential sentence elements.
👉 Noun clauses are different.
A noun clause functions as a noun.
Why is this such a big deal?
Because noun clauses can be essential parts of a sentence—the parts you must identify to build a correct sentence.
Remember the five sentence patterns we discussed in a previous video?
This is the most important grammar concept for sentence building.
🧱 The Five Basic Sentence Patterns
Even though English looks complicated, there are only five basic sentence patterns.
Every English statement begins with:
👉 Subject + Verb
Here are the five patterns:
Pattern 1
Subject + Verb
The ship sank.
Pattern 2
Subject + Verb + Subject Complement
He became a teacher.
Pattern 3
Subject + Verb + Object
I called him.
I sank the ship.
Pattern 4
Subject + Verb + Indirect Object + Direct Object
I sent him a present.
Pattern 5
Subject + Verb + Object + Object Complement
I called him a liar.
🧠 What Can a Noun Clause Do?
A noun clause can function as:
the subject
the subject complement
the object
the indirect object
the object complement
Noun clauses are most often introduced by:
Question words
what, who, how, why, how long, how much
Subordinating conjunctions
that, if, whether
⚠️ Important note:
The same words can sometimes act as relative pronouns or subordinating adverbs.
👉 You can only identify the clause type by looking at how it functions in the sentence, not just the word itself.
1️⃣ Noun Clause as the Subject
Whether he agrees is still unclear.
How long the meeting will last depends on the discussion.
Here, the entire noun clause acts as the subject.
2️⃣ Noun Clause as the Subject Complement
The question is whether we should continue.
The issue was how much the project would cost.
The noun clause follows a linking verb and completes the subject.
3️⃣ Noun Clause as the Object
I don’t know if she will accept the offer.
They discussed how long the repairs would take.
More examples:
I don’t understand why he changed his mind.
She explained what the results meant.
👉 The noun clause receives the action of the verb.
4️⃣ Noun Clause with Indirect Object + Direct Object (Pattern 4)
⚠️ This is a very common TOEFL sentence-building pattern.
She told me what had happened.
(me = indirect object; what had happened = noun clause direct object)The boss showed us how the system works.
He taught the class why the theory was flawed.
Here, the noun clause is the direct object, not the indirect one.
Rare Case: Noun Clause as the Indirect Object
This form is rare and sounds formal or academic:
The teacher gave whoever finished first a reward.
She promised whomever I chose a bonus.
5️⃣ Noun Clause as Object Complement
Object complement pattern:
👉 Verb + Object + Object Complement
Important point:
This sentence is not grammatical:
✗ The committee considered the main concern how much the delay would affect sales.
It needs a link.
✔️ Grammatical Object-Complement Structures with Noun Clauses
The committee considered the main concern to be how much the delay would affect sales.
The board judged the biggest risk to be whether customers would lose trust.
The teacher found the problem to be that students were not submitting homework on time.
Here:
the bold noun is the direct object
the following “to be + noun clause” explains or renames it
🚀 Why Are Noun Clauses Such a Big Deal?
Because noun clauses are essential sentence elements, and sentences with noun clauses feel more complex and challenging.
Why?
Because now you have:
two subjects
two verbs
one sentence embedded inside another
👉 Finding these core elements is about 80% of sentence building.
If you can identify them, the rest is easy.
🧠 Why Native Speakers Answer Intuitively
Have you ever wondered why native speakers answer these questions so intuitively?
It’s not magic ✨
It’s pattern recognition.
That’s actually what ChatGPT is doing too.
Native speakers have seen these structures so many times that their brains recognize the pattern instantly.
Interestingly, if native speakers get stuck, they often can’t explain why—because they never learned the grammar explicitly.
For non-native speakers, this is your advantage:
These questions are logic-based
But under time pressure, you also need native-like intuition
👉 Work through the logic
Then:
👉 Build intuition through repetition