Introduction to Conjunctions

A conjunction is a word used to link or conjoin words or phrases into a coherent whole. There are two classes of conjunctions: coordinate and subordinate.

Coordinating Conjunctions

A coordinating conjunction coordinates two equivalent elements in a sentence, that is, words belonging to the same grammatical category (nouns + nouns, verbs + verbs, independent clause + independent clause, etc.). The most commonly used coordinating conjunctions in Spanish are:

pero	but
o	or
y	and
entonces	so, thus
ni … ni	neither … nor
pues	then

Le fui y le dije a mi papá que yo quería seguir estudiando y, entonces, él me dijo que no.
I went and told my dad that I wanted to keep studying and then he told me no.
No hablan palabras exactas ni inglés ni español.
They don’t use exact words neither English nor Spanish.

Subordinating Conjunctions

A subordinating conjunction links an independent clause to a dependent clause. In other words, a subordinating conjunction joins two unequivalent clauses (independent and dependent). An independent clause is any clause that can stand alone to form a grammatical sentence. A dependent clause, on the other hand, cannot stand alone and thus depends on the main clause in order to form a complete thought.

The several commonly used subordinate conjunctions are:

que	that
mientras	as, while
cuando	when
donde	where
desde que	since (indicating time)
mientras que	while, whereas
como	since
porque	because
apenas	as soon as

Uno aprende a ser padre o madre, mientras uno va caminando.
One learns to be a dad or mom as one goes.
Apenas veo que alguien está más a gusto a hablar en español, cuando estoy en el trabajo, es lo que hablo.
As soon as I see that someone is more comfortable speaking in Spanish, when I am at my job, that’s what I speak.