TechNet of Microsoft wote:
SQL Server uses the following ISO keywords for outer joins specified in a FROM clause:
- LEFT OUTER JOIN or LEFT JOIN
- RIGHT OUTER JOIN or RIGHT JOIN
- FULL OUTER JOIN or FULL JOIN
source:
Using Outer Joins[
^]
LEFT JOIN
and
LEFT OUTER JOIN
has the same meaning to MS SQL server.
Here is an excellent article about joins:
Visual Representation of SQL Joins[
^] which ight help you to understand how it works!