A few days ago, the Wikidata Query Builder[0] was deployed. It provides a visual interface to generate simple SPARQL queries, and you can show the generated queries. Maybe this can help you in understanding how SPARQL patterns work?
It could really benefit from some linked examples on that page though - I stared at the interface for quite a while, unable to figure out how to use it for anything - then I dug around for an example link and it started to make sense to me.
[0] https://query.wikidata.org/querybuilder/