Advanced Grammar – An Introduction to Sentence Connectors

Sentence Connectors are a great way of improving your English. Why? Because we use them to express relationships between ideas and to combine sentences.

When we begin learning a language, we speak in very basic sentences, a bit like children.
Example: “London is a very exciting city. London is very expensive.”

As we learn more words and more complex sentence structure, we are able to start using sentence connectors to make more sophisticated sentences.
Example: “London is a very exciting city; nevertheless it is also very expensive” or
“Despite the fact that London is very expensive, it is also very exciting”

There are various types of connectors. We can divide them into:

Coordinating Conjunctions

They connect words, phrases and clauses. They are usually found in the middle of a sentence with a comma (,) just before the conjuction, or at the beginning of the sentence.

Coordinating Conjunctions:

for and nor but or yet so (remember FANBOYS)

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Correlative Conjunctions

They connect equal sentence elements together (like two nouns) and are always composed by two words.

Correlative Conjunctions:

both…and not only…but also not…but either…or neither…nor whether…or as…as

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Subordinating Conjunctions

They connect a dependent clause and an independent clause and establish a relationship between them. They happen at the beginning of a sentence (with a comma in the middle separating the clauses) or in the middle of a sentence with no comma.

Subordinating Conjunctions:

after	if	though	although
if only	till	as	in order that
unless	as if	now that	until
as long as	once	when	as though
rather than	whenever	because	since
where	before	so that	whereas
even if	than	wherever	even though
that	that	while

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Linking Adverbs and Transition Words

They connect two independent clauses or sentences. They provide transition between ideas.

Linking Adverbs and Transition Words:

accordingly	however	nonetheless	also
indeed	otherwise	besides	instead
similarly	consequently	likewise	still
conversely	meanwhile	subsequently	finally
moreover	then	furthermore	nevertheless
therefore	hence	next	thus