There's a general awareness that smoking is harmful

Open Forum in English
1

There’s a general awareness that smoking is harmful.

Question: Is this okay to leave out the word “that” in this sentence?
So the sentence will be like “There’s a general awareness smoking is harmful”.

Thank you.

2

I’m not an English teacher by any means, but I’m a native. I can give you my opinion about the sentence.

So, I think of the sentence: “There’s a general awareness that smoking is bad,” as essentially having two parts, and that the word “that” is used in the sentence to connect the two parts of the sentence together.

For example:

Part 1: There’s a general awareness

Connecting word: that

Part 2: smoking is bad.

There’s a general awareness that smoking is bad.

3

It would not sound very bad if you left out the word “that” but I think most people would consider it incorrect. The original sentence with the “that” is better.

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