Conjunctions are an easy, practical and popular means of communicating in English.
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By using these ‘little‘ words we can communicate far more than the word itself. Conjunctions such as yet, however, and but can be viewed as stop signs. That is as a listener / reader, when you see or hear these words you understand that what is to follow will not be the same as what came before.
- ‘She is always coming late to class, but she is the best student.’
- ‘Hitler came to power as part of a coalition government. However, he soon assumed absolute power.’
If we continue the notion of road signs, ‘and‘ is the perfect example of a green light. When using ‘and‘ we understand that what was just said or written is going to have supporting information.
- ‘I like her very much, and we are going to get married.’
Words such as because, for, since, and until also let us know that we will either be getting a reason or more detailed information (including time references); so perhaps we can think of these words as a roundabout, a slight pause rather than ‘yet’s’ full stop!
- ‘He said he would never go back to that hotel again because the staff was rude.’
- ‘I was unsure if I could trust him until he told me the truth.’
Of course, we can also use ‘and‘ to separate words in a sentence, but we should only do this with two items.
- ‘She likes oranges and bananas.’
For longer lists (three or more items) we use ‘and‘ to signify the end of a group.
- ‘He likes football, basketball, baseball, and hockey.’
So go take your car for a spin, but don’t forget those red lights. If you see a ‘yet‘, you might want to slow down!
- ‘I own a Ferrari, yet I like to drive my 1950s Beetle.
- ‘I will never sell this car, for it reminds me of the carefree days of my childhood.’
- ‘Since I have nothing to do today, I’ll just get in my car and go for a ride.’
Read more:
List of Sentence Connectors in English with Examples!
What are the main types of sentence structures?
