B2 lesson 21 gave you an argument's skeleton: d’abord, ensuite, enfin, certes… mais, en conclusion. That skeleton works. The trouble is that it announces itself — a French reader can hear the scaffolding, and at C1 the scaffolding is supposed to disappear into the joints.
This lesson is the full inventory of the connectives that do that: the pivot, the concession, the reinforcement, the reformulation and the close. Learn them with their register, because half of them are unusable in conversation.
Or is not or. It introduces the fact that disturbs what was just said. It is the hinge on which French argument turns, it is one syllable long, and almost no learner uses it.
Le gouvernement annonce une baisse du chômage. Or, les chiffres publiés hier disent le contraire.
Il prétend n’avoir rien su. Or il présidait la réunion.
English has no single word for it. Now, yet and but in fact are all approximations. Whenever you are about to write mais en fait, try or instead.
This is the engine of French argumentation. You grant your opponent's point sincerely, then take the ground back. The rebuttal half is where the C1 vocabulary lives.
| French | Pronunciation | Use |
|---|---|---|
| certes… mais | SAIRT may | admittedly… but (the standard pair) |
| il est vrai que… toutefois | eel ay vray kuh too-tuh-FWAH | it is true that… however |
| il n’en demeure pas moins que | eel nahn duh-muhr pah mwan kuh | the fact nevertheless remains that |
| force est de constater que | FORS ay duh kohn-stah-tay kuh | one is bound to note that |
| en revanche | ahn ruh-VAHNSH | on the other hand (contrast, not concession) |
| encore que | ahn-KOR kuh | although, albeit (+ subj.) — afterthought |
| à ceci près que | ah suh-see pray kuh | except that |
| quitte à | KEET ah | even if it means (+ infinitive) |
| loin de là | lwan duh LAH | far from it |
Certes, le coût est élevé. Il n’en demeure pas moins que l’inaction coûterait davantage.
You have conceded, and then restated your thesis without repeating it. That two-step is worth drilling until it is automatic — it is what DALF examiners are listening for.
Encore que deserves a note: it comes after the clause it qualifies, as a spoken-or-written afterthought. Je suis d’accord. Encore qu’il faudrait vérifier les chiffres.
| French | Pronunciation | Use |
|---|---|---|
| d’autant plus que | doh-tahn plü kuh | all the more so because |
| d’autant moins que | doh-tahn mwan kuh | all the less so because |
| à plus forte raison | ah plü fort ray-ZOHN | all the more reason, a fortiori |
| qui plus est | kee plü ZAY | what is more (soutenu) |
| non seulement… mais encore | nohn suhl-mahn may zahn-KOR | not only… but also |
| sans compter que | sahn kohn-tay kuh | not to mention that |
Le projet est coûteux, d’autant plus qu’il faudra tout recommencer dans cinq ans. — The reason strengthens a judgment already given, rather than explaining it from scratch. That is the difference between d’autant plus que and plain parce que.
These signal that nothing new is coming — you are restating. Using them when you actually add a new idea is a classic C1 slip that examiners notice.
| French | Pronunciation | Use |
|---|---|---|
| autrement dit | oh-truh-mahn DEE | in other words |
| à savoir | ah sah-VWAHR | namely (introduces a list or specification) |
| en d’autres termes | ahn dohtr TAIRM | in other terms |
| c’est-à-dire que | say-tah-DEER kuh | that is to say |
| pour ainsi dire | poor an-see DEER | so to speak |
| en somme | ahn SOM | in short |
| French | Pronunciation | Use |
|---|---|---|
| aussi (+ inversion) | oh-SEE | therefore — Aussi avons-nous décidé… |
| d’où | DOO | hence — d’où l’intérêt de la réforme |
| partant | par-TAHN | consequently (very soutenu) |
| faute de quoi | foht duh KWAH | failing which |
| en tout état de cause | ahn too tay-tah duh KOHZ | in any event |
| cela étant | suh-lah ay-TAHN | that being so |
| toujours est-il que | too-zhoor ay-teel kuh | the fact is that |
| en définitive | ahn day-fee-nee-TEEV | ultimately |
| sous réserve de | soo ray-ZAIRV duh | subject to |
Every connective sits somewhere on the ladder of B2 lesson 16. Mixing rungs is the commonest way an otherwise good text goes wrong.
| Familier | Courant | Soutenu |
|---|---|---|
| du coup | donc, par conséquent | aussi, partant |
| mais bon | cependant, toutefois | il n’en demeure pas moins que |
| en plus | de plus, par ailleurs | qui plus est |
| au final | finalement, en conclusion | en définitive |
| sauf que | mis à part que | à ceci près que |
Don't over-connect. A French paragraph does not need a connective in every sentence; juxtaposition and the colon carry logic too. Three connectives in five sentences reads as an essay written to a checklist.
Au final is not en définitive. It is a recent spoken form that grates in writing. Examiners notice it; so do employers.
The concede-then-rebut pair is drilled into French students from the lycée onwards, because the dissertation's dialectical plan is built on it. Or is alive and frequent in speech as well as writing. The current spoken filler of choice is du coup, whose spread since the 2000s is a standing complaint in language columns — it has largely displaced donc in casual Parisian speech.
Written Québécois uses the same inventory. Two spoken differences stand out: fait que (from ça fait que) is the everyday consequence marker where France now says du coup, and par contre is used very freely for contrast — including in contexts where a French purist would insist on en revanche. Québec's plain-language tradition also makes heavy soutenu connectives rarer in administrative text than in France.
From: or · en revanche · d’autant plus que · autrement dit · faute de quoi.
Replace the familiar connective with its soutenu equivalent.
Write reformulation or ajout for each connective.
1. Or at the head of a sentence signals:
2. Which pair is correctly matched in register?
3. Le projet est coûteux, d’autant plus qu’il faudra tout refaire. The second clause: