Academic English Skills with Dr. Byrnes

Hello everyone! Welcome back to Dr. Byrnes' TOEFL and Duolingo English Test Show! Today, we're going to learn one of the most important grammar topics in English: word order , or how English sentences are organized. Word order is tested directly in the TOEFL Build a Sentence question. It is also essential for solving Duolingo English Test Read and Complete questions, where you must determine which words correctly complete the sentence. Think of word order as the skeleton of a sentence . You can't simply throw words together and expect to create a grammatical sentence. For example, like Yoda from Star Wars , you might say, "Strong, Force, this kid." "The words are there, but grammar tells us how to arrange them into a sentence. Standard English would be, "This kid is strong with the Force." Grammar isn't just about knowing the right words—it's about putting them together in the correct order. Now, to build a correct sentence, you need to ...