The trick is to remember that the letter for a name is lower case and the characteristic connected with that name is capitalized.
So let's imagine we have these folks: Al, Barbara, Claudio, and Donna. Let's also imagine we could talk about them as students (with S to represent this), as young people (Y), as ambitious (A), and as working hard (W).
Ya would represent the idea that Al is young. Aa tells us Al is ambitious.
If we want to express the thought that both Barbara and Donna are ambitious we would have Ab & Ad.
Suppose we want to add on to the last idea so that we say that although Barbara and Donna are both ambitious we know that Barbara is the one who works hard while Donna doesn't: Ab & Ad & Wb & ~Wd
But if we wanted to say anything that requires grouping, we will need to have those parentheses. For instance, let's change the last idea so that we have the sentence "While Barbara and Donna are both ambitious it's not true that they both work hard." Ab & Ad & ~(Wb & Wd)
Or "If Barbara and Donna are both ambitious then they must both work hard." (Ab & Ad) ->(Wb & Wd)
Now for a practice exercise: On a piece of paper write how you would symbolize the following sentences. When you think you have your answers click on to compare with what I would have written.
Al is
young but Claudio is not.
Barbara is not a student but Donna is.
Although both Al and Claudio are students,
they are not both young.
Al and Claudio are not both young but they
both work hard.
If Barbara is not ambitious then she will
not work hard.
If either Barbara or Donna is ambitious then
they will both work hard.
Claudio will work hard unless he is not
ambitious,
but Donna will not work hard unless she is ambitious.
If Al and Claudio are not both ambitious then
one of them will not be working hard.