Today let’s take a look at conjunctions.
Those are the words that connect other words and phrases together.
The simplest ones that we often use are and, but, for, or, so and yet.
But, apart from those, there are many more options we can use.
Let’s look at some of them:
1) Although
When you make two statements and one of them is surprising, you start your sentence with although.
Quite often we can use either although or though, though can be put somewhere else in your sentences, but, in some cases, it changes its meaning to however and then you can’t switch it to although. These cases turn though into adverbs, not conjunctions.
2) Because
This one’s easy to understand. We use because when we give reasons to what we’re saying.
3) Despite
Similarly to although, when we use despite, we talk about something surprising, something that strongly contrasts whatever we said before.
You can also use in spite of instead, but don’t forget to use all 3 words when you do that!
4) Provided
Provided may seem like a long word, but it has the same meaning as only if. We can add that after this conjunction, but it’s not necessary.
5) Since
Apart from being used in the Perfect tenses, since can be used to show the time when something happened or the reason for something (Just like because)
6) Unless
Just like provided, unless also means something with if, specifically if not.
In this case, if I wanted to change unless to if not, I would get
You don’t have to come with us if you don’t want to.
Doesn’t seem too hard, does it?
Let’s check that out by doing a short matching exercise!
The idea for this post came from the fact that when you want your site to be found more often by Google, you have to use a lot of similar words, which are referred to as “Transition words”. Though it can get your website into the top of the search, I find that the first articles often overuse these words and aren’t that useful to me when I’m looking for specific information.
What about you? Would you prefer to see more complex, but easier to find posts or do you think my style of writing is easier to understand and is more useful for you?
Let us know in the comments section and have a great weekend! 🙂