---
title: "Two-Part Conjunctions"
description: "German correlative conjunctions — entweder/oder, weder/noch, sowohl/als auch, je/desto, and zwar/aber — with examples and English equivalents."
source: "https://germanforenglishspeakers.com/other/two-part-conjunctions"
crawled: "2026-06-30"
---

# Two-Part Conjunctions

Most two-part conjunctions in German have direct English equivalents, so it's faster to learn them by example than to break them down grammatically. The easiest are either/or and neither/nor:

_Wir können **entweder** ins Kino **oder** ins Restaurant gehen._
We can either go to the cinema or to the restaurant.

_Sie isst **weder** Fisch **noch** Fleisch._
She eats neither fish nor meat.

(Also, if someone offers you two options and you want to reject both, you can just say _weder noch_ to mean "neither one.")

_Sowohl_ literally translates to "as well (as)" and is usually combined with _als auch_ or _wie_ to indicate that two things are both true. The sentence structure is a little different from English, though. We put "as well as" or "and" in between the two items, but _sowohl_ goes before them. The nearest English equivalent in terms of sentence structure is "both/and":

_Dieses Gerät spart **sowohl** Zeit **als auch** Geld._
This appliance saves **both** time **and** money.
OR: This appliance saves time **as well as** money.

_**sowohl** im Inland **wie auch** im Ausland_
**both** at home **and** abroad
OR: at home **as well as** abroad.

_Je/desto_ expresses a relationship between two [comparative](/adjectives/comparative-and-superlative-forms.md "2. Comparative & Superlative Forms") adjectives:

_**Je mehr** du redest, **desto dümmer** klingst du._
**The more** you talk, **the dumber** you sound.

_Zwar_ usually translates to "indeed" or "granted" or "it's true." It's frequently used with _aber_ ("but") to partially concede an argument or fact but still maintain an opposing position:

_Er mochte sie **zwar**, wollte sie **aber** nicht heiraten._
While he certainly liked her, he did not want to marry her.

[Continue to next section >>](/other/modal-particles.md)