English conjunctions are words that connect words, phrases, or clauses in a sentence. There are several types of conjunctions in English, including coordinating conjunctions (also called subordinating conjunctions), correlative conjunctions, and transitional conjunctions.
Coordinating conjunctions include words like "and," "or," "but," and "nor." They are used to connect words or groups of words that have equal grammatical weight in a sentence. For example: "I like pizza and pasta" (both pizza and pasta are equally important) or "She is smart and funny" (smart and funny are both qualities of the person).
Correlative conjunctions include words like "because," "although," "since," and "while." They are used to show a relationship between two ideas in a sentence. For example: "Although it was raining, we went for a walk" (the fact that it was raining is related to the action of going for a walk) or "Because I was tired, I went to bed early" (the reason for going to bed early is because I was tired).
Transitional conjunctions include words like "however," "therefore," "in addition," and "meanwhile." They are used to signal a change in thought or to introduce a new idea in a sentence. For example: "I wanted to go to the party, but I was too tired" (however is used to show the change in thought from wanting to go to the party to being too tired) or "He finished his homework, therefore he could play video games" (therefore is used to show the cause-and-effect relationship between finishing homework and being able to play video games).
