Meet the Comma | Punctuation | Grammar | Khan Academy Video Lecture | Complete Course on English Grammar: Upgrade your Speaking & Listening - Personal Skills

hello grammarians today Paige and I are
going to teach you all about your new
best friend of the comma it is a piece
of punctuation that has many many many
functions and we're just going to
broadly overview them today the comma is
an extremely powerful piece of
punctuation can do a whole bunch of
stuff so Paige what is like the most
pertinent or important thing that the
comma does I would probably say that it
is separating sentence elements okay so
that's like its broad superpower exactly
but it can also but lots of stuff falls
under that okay so it's like it has
laser vision but it can not only use
that laser vision to like boil water but
it can also cut through steel exactly so
this is like a super superhero
punctuation mark into a c4 it's okay so
how is the comma going to save the day
today how's it going to make our
sentences make sense what are some of
the things that it separates so we can
separate elements of lists mm-hmm what's
so like for lunch I had tofu comma spam
kala and seaweed
sorry Hawaiian lunch delicious um so
that's that's something that's a way in
which we can so it's separating these
elements of this list I guess commas can
also separate dates that's right dates
and times so for example here in the
United States a national blueberry
muffin day is July 11th and if we wanted
to refer to a historical blueberry
muffin day let's say July 11th comma
1981 Wow was the best muffin day ever
that I wish I could have been around
yeah okay so so a comma can separate
lists making
be used for dates and we can also like
set off things at the beginning of
sentences like basically everything is
great right so the comet has like a
bunch of different functions it's like
this super useful multi-tool it's the
super hero of a piece of punctuation so
we're not going to cover all of that in
this video the most important thing to
remember about the comma is what it does
is separate sentence elements it can it
can separate clauses it can separate
items in a list it can separate dates
usually when you're trying to make a
separation within a sentence you use a
comma so peach what are some things that
commas can't do that's a great question
so commas can't go at the end of a
sentence okay so I couldn't be like I
want to go swimming comma and that would
that couldn't like I couldn't end a
sentence that way you need to say
something after it so this is this is no
good or or you have to keep going like I
want to go swimming and then sailing and
then it with a period like that yes okay
so that would be fun that's totally fine
usage for a comma if it's in the middle
of a sentence but not at the end of a
sentence right okay so commas only go in
the middle yeah so comma separates stuff
which therefore means it has to be on it
has to be in between something right
there has to be something to the left
and something to the right cool
all right that's that's a comma yeah
would you say I think we have
successfully met the comma cool you can
learn anything David out page out