Li, and, li a, help

Can someone please explain to me the difference between li, and li a, in css, im working on getting all the code for a navbar down and i just cant understand

The li selector matches a list item, i.e. it will match any <li> tag.

The li a selector matches an anchor tag that is a descendant of a list item. It will only match <a> tags that are within <li> tags.

Thank you so much, I looked all over google and that was the best explanation