Hi, Jin! I left an essay because I had a question. I saw semicolons in some sentences sometimes. We don't use semicolon frequently in Korea. So I don't know well when I use it. There was a sentence in previous essay. The sentence was "I'm a part of this company; it's not a big deal to fire me." Is there a specific situation for which I need to use a semicolon? I'm not used to it, so I don't know when I use it and why I need to use it. Please help me on this one.
Hi, Jin! Happy Monday! It's nice to hear questions like this from you. It just shows that you really want to learn. Great job. Anyway, a semicolon is used to link two closely-related independent clauses. That is, the two statements on either side of the semicolon could totally be sentences all their own, but the semicolon indicates that they’re essentially part of the same idea.
"I'm a part of this company; it's not a big deal to fire me."
Here, these two statements could easily stand on their own with a period between them. However, with a semicolon, we can emphasize the closeness between them. You can also use a semicolon in compound sentences that are not linked by a conjunction such as "and," "but,", "or," "nor," and "yet."
If you have more questions about this, you can ask me during our class tomorrow. Have a great day! :)
~Teacher Jin
