SELECT chooses which columns you see
Think of a table as a spreadsheet: each row is one thing, each column is one fact about it. SELECT is where you name the columns you want back. FROM says which table to take them from. Everything you don't name simply isn't shown.
A tiny example
In plain English: Show me the title and author of every book.
SELECT title, author
FROM books;What comes back
| title | author |
|---|---|
| The Hobbit | Tolkien |
| Piranesi | Clarke |
| Dune | Herbert |
The books table has more columns, but only title and author come back because those are the two SELECT named.
Related SQL lessons
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