Vary Your Sentences: Simple Ways to Sound More Natural
How to mix short and long sentences, change sentence openings and combine ideas so your writing flows.
Read these two paragraphs aloud.
A
I went to the market. I bought some fruit. I saw my teacher. She said hello. I was surprised. I went home.
B
On Saturday morning I went to the market to buy some fruit. While I was choosing apples, I saw my teacher. She said hello, which surprised me, and then I went home.
Both are correct. B is easier and more pleasant to read because the sentences have different lengths and shapes.
1. Mix short and long
Long sentences carry detail. Short sentences give emphasis. Use both.
We walked for six hours through rain and mud, following a map that was clearly out of date. Then we saw the hut.
2. Change the start
If every sentence begins with I or The, try opening with:
- a time phrase: Last summer, …
- a place: Behind the station, …
- an -ing phrase: Looking out of the window, I noticed…
- a linking word: Although…, Luckily…
3. Combine with relative clauses
My uncle lives in Izmir. He is a fisherman. → My uncle, who lives in Izmir, is a fisherman.
We stayed in a hotel. It had a pool. → We stayed in a hotel with a pool. (Sometimes a short phrase is even better than a clause.)
4. Combine with time and reason words
It was raining. We stayed inside. → Because it was raining, we stayed inside. / It was raining, so we stayed inside.
5. At higher levels: a few advanced structures
- Cleft sentences for emphasis: What I loved most was the silence. / It was the noise that kept us awake.
- Inversion (formal): Not only was the hotel cheap, but it was also beautiful. / Rarely have I seen such a view.
- Participle clauses: Having finished the exam, she went straight to bed.
Don't force advanced structures into every paragraph. One or two in an essay, used naturally, show range. Ten of them sound strange.
A quick test
Count the words in each sentence of your last paragraph. If they're all within two or three words of each other, change one: make it much shorter or much longer.
Quick practice
Fill in the gaps, then check.
- Join the ideas: "It was cold. We went out." → " it was cold, we went out."
- "The film, was very long, ended at midnight."
- "Not only she sing, but she also plays the guitar."
- Start with a time phrase: " the morning, I study best."
- "Tired hungry, we finally reached the hotel."