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Conjunctions That Indicate Cause & Effect

Conclusive coordinating conjunctions (conjunções coordenativas conclusivas), as the name implies, express a consequence or conclusion. More specifically, these Portuguese conjunctions indicate a cause and effect relationship between parts of the sentence.
A couple common examples are portantotherefore and entãoso .
Não quero ir, portanto não vouI don't want to go, therefore I won't go
In the right context, pois and logo can also be included in this group. As standalone words they don’t have consistent English translations, but as conjunctions, they are similar to so or because.
Examples:
Está frio. Não vou, pois, sairIt's cold so I won't go out
Não estuda, logo não tem boas notasShe doesn't study, so she doesn't have good grades
Here are some common conjunction phrases that show cause and effect:
por issofor that (reason) -> most used
Eu tenho sacos, por isso eu vou de elevadorI have bags, so I will take the elevator (i.e. lift)
por conseguinteconsequently -> less common and more formal
Ela não toma banho, por conseguinte cheira malShe doesn't take baths; consequently, she smells bad

Comments

  • Co-ordinating conjunctions are a very difficult area to learn but the whole unit has helped me immensely in my understanding. I am much improved by the lessons although I guess that I will tend to use the simpler “spoken” conjunctions where appropriate…….but I should be able with more effort in this area to understand the many more which tend to be used in the written form.
    This is a series of units to revisit and relearn at a later stage.

    • I agree with Mac. It’s helpful that you indicate the most commonly used ones so I can work on using them initially. Of course we need to understand the others and hopefully in time they will become automatic…..well that’s what I aspire to.

      • Olá, Angela. “Portanto” was already indicated as the most common simple conjunction. In the group of conjunction phrases, I’ve just added the note that “por isso” is the most commonly used one. Hope this helps!

    • It doesn’t 🙂 ‘Embora’ is not a coordinating, but a subordinating conjunction (like the English ‘although’). Apart from that, it’s used as an adverb in expressions such as ‘Vamos embora’ [Let’s go]. ‘Bora’ is the slang/colloquial reduction of this adverbial use.

  • Hm, ambos ‘por isso’ e ‘portanto’ parece-me iguais. Posso usá-las como sinônimos? Ou qual é a diferencia?

    • Em contextos em que são usados da mesma forma (com intenção conclusiva), sim, podem ser usados como sinónimos. Basicamente, casos em que poderíamos usar ‘so’ ou ‘therefore’ em inglês. Por exemplo:
      – Estou doente, por isso não vou. = Estou doente, portanto não vou. (I’m sick, so I won’t go)

      Mas ‘por isso’ também pode ser usado com intenção explicativa e, nesse caso, não é intercambiável com ‘portanto’. Isto aplica-se, por exemplo, em casos em que usaríamos ‘that’s why’ em inglês.
      – É por isso que não tens tempo. (That’s why you don’t have time)

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