AP JAPANESE TRANSITION WORDS

AP JAPANESE TRANSITION WORDS

First / To begin with (used in essays and speeches; neutral, commonly used)

まず

Next (used in essays and speeches; good for ordering points)

次に（つぎに）

After that / Then (used in essays and speeches; slightly more casual)

それから

Last / Finally (used in essays and speeches; neutral and appropriate)

最後に（さいごに）

And then (neutral connector, good for essays and speeches)

そして

Also / In addition (formal; best for writing)

また

Moreover / Furthermore (formal; especially good in essays)

その上（そのうえ）

On the other hand (formal; great for written contrasts)

一方（いっぽう）で

However (neutral; used in both speech and writing)

しかし

But (informal; use only in speech, avoid in writing)

でも

However / Though (more natural in speech than しかし)

けれども／けれど

Compared to ~ (used when making direct comparisons)

〜に比べて（くらべて）

Similarly (used to highlight similarities)

同じように

Because / The reason is (formal; used in writing)

なぜなら

Because ~ (good for essays and speeches; ending a reason)

〜からです

In other words / That is to say (used in essays and speeches for clarification)

つまり

For example (essential for giving examples in both writing and speech)

たとえば

In this way / As such (good for summarizing in essays)

このように

In my opinion (formal; use to introduce your view in essays)

私の意見では

I think that ~ (standard for giving opinions in essays and speeches)

私は〜と思います

Of course (use sparingly for emphasis; okay in both essays and speech)

もちろん

Certainly / Admittedly (useful when making concessions in essays or formal speech)

確かに（たしかに）

In conclusion (excellent way to end your essay)

結論として（けつろんとして）

In short / To summarize (summarizes key points; use in essays and speech)

要するに（ようするに）

Overall (higher-level phrase to summarize an overall impression)

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