German essay transitions

These are all variations of common phrases that we often include in our native language — often without even thinking about it. First of all, first — zunächst, erstens. Secondly, thirdly... — zweitens, drittens... besides — außerdem. then — dann. incidentally — übrigens.

One of the best ways to learn how native German speakers learn transition words is with FluentU. FluentU takes real-world videos—like music videos, movie trailers, news and inspiring talks—and turns them into personalized language learning lessons .

Often, there are several words suitable for one transition, just remember that they don’t always mean the same and you might need some practice to recognize the subtle differences between them. To avoid this, look up synonyms, and never use the same transition word more than once in a single piece of prose (especially in the same paragraph).

So, it wouldn’t hurt to add all the weapons you can find to your essay-writing arsenal, like these transition words. What are transition words? Transition words and phrases are a part of speech, and they’re used to create coherent relationships between ideas in the text. The ones you might be familiar with are ‘and’, ‘but’, ‘so’ and ‘because’.