It is very important when we write in any language to create logical relationships between the ideas that we present. There is a number of relationships that we can create like addition, contrast, among others, and there are many words and expressions that we can use to express these relationships. In this post, I present some words and expressions that we can use to express the relationship of contrast in Arabic. Some of the contrast connectors in English are ‘but’, ‘whereas’, ‘despite’, etc.

The most commonly used connector in Arabic is probably (لكن) ‘but’. We can use it to connect sentences. Consider the following examples:

محمد طبيب ولكن عادل مهندس.

“Mohammed is a doctor, but Adel is an engineer.”

لا أستطيع السفر بالطائرة ولكن يمكن أن أسافر بالقطار.

“I cannot travel by air, but I can go by train.”

We express ‘although’, ‘despite’ or ‘in spite of’ in Arabic using the expressions (على الرغم من) or (برغم).

على الرغم من أن الأستاذ مشغول، فإنه وافق على مقابلتنا.

“Although the teacher is busy, he agreed to meet us.”

برغم مرضي، حضرت إلى العمل.

“Despite/in spite of my illness, I came to work.”

We can express ‘whereas’, ‘nevertheless’, etc. in Arabic using the expressions (بينما), (ومع ذلك), etc.

كانت رحلتنا متعبة للغاية، بينما استمتع الآخرون برحلتهم.

“Our trip was very exhausting while others enjoyed their trip.”

أعمل كثيراً، ومع ذلك لا أحصل على راتب جيد.

“I work very hard, nevertheless, I do not get a good salary.”