How to Say However, Although, Even Though and Despite in French

English gets by with a small kit of contrast words and one all-purpose even. French has a richer set, and it polices the boundaries: the word you choose fixes the register, and two of the conjunctions drag a mood along with them. Here is the whole family, one connector at a time.

However in French: cependant, pourtant, toutefois

The workhorse is cependant (however). It is an adverb, not a conjunction: it follows a full stop or a semicolon and takes a comma, exactly like English however.

• Il est riche; cependant, il n'est pas heureux. (He is rich; however, he is not happy.)
• Le plan est simple. Cependant, il coûte cher. (The plan is simple. However, it is expensive.)

Pourtant means the same but carries more surprise - closer to and yet. It flags that the second fact was not supposed to follow from the first.

• Il a beaucoup étudié; pourtant, il a échoué. (He studied hard; and yet he failed.)

Toutefois and néanmoins (nevertheless) are the formal pair, at home in essays, reports and official letters. Toutefois softens the objection; néanmoins grants the point and then presses on.

• Le projet est coûteux; néanmoins, il est nécessaire. (The project is costly; nevertheless, it is necessary.)
• La proposition est intéressante. Toutefois, elle pose un problème. (The proposal is interesting. However, it raises a problem.)

None of these can weld two clauses together the way mais (but) does. Il est riche, cependant il n'est pas heureux, with only a comma, is common enough in casual writing but reads like the English comma splice in an essay: use a full stop, a semicolon, or mais.

Although and even though: bien que and quoique

For a concession about a real fact, French uses bien que, and it demands the subjunctive:

• Bien qu'il soit riche, il n'est pas heureux. (Even though he is rich, he is not happy.)
• Bien que nous soyons fatigués, nous continuerons. (Although we are tired, we will carry on.)

Quoique (one word) means exactly the same and takes the same subjunctive; it is simply rarer and a shade more literary. Do not confuse it with quoi que in two words, which means whatever - the concession clauses page untangles that pair.

The subjunctive here is not decoration. Bien qu'il est riche is among the most visible errors a learner can write, because bien que sits on the fixed list of subjunctive conjunctions - the full list lives on the subjunctive after conjunctions page. If the subjunctive still feels like a tax, there is a legal way round it: malgré plus a noun says the same thing with no clause at all.

Even if: même si, and why the mood flips

Here is the split English hides. Même si (even if) takes the indicative, never the subjunctive:

• Même s'il pleut demain, nous sortirons. (Even if it rains tomorrow, we will go out.)
• Même si tu ne me crois pas, c'est la vérité. (Even if you do not believe me, it is the truth.)

So French draws a line that English smudges:

Bien qu'il pleuve, je sors - it really is raining. Même s'il pleut, je sortirai - it may or may not rain. Ask one question: could the thing still not happen? Then only même si + indicative will do. If it is a real fact, both work: bien que + subjunctive is the more written choice, and même s'il pleut, je sors is what most people say. Whichever you pick, the mood comes with the word, and getting that right is the clearest signal that your French concessions are under control. Spanish draws a similar fact-or-hypothesis line with aunque, though it spreads the moods differently.

Since même si is built on si, the si clauses golden rule applies: no future and no conditional directly after the si.

Even in French: même

Même on its own is even, and it stands directly in front of the thing it points at:

• Même le professeur a ri. (Even the teacher laughed.)
• Il ne mange même pas. (He does not even eat.)
• Elle travaille même le dimanche. (She works even on Sundays.)

Position is everything, because même has a second life. Before the article or name it means even; between the article and the noun it means same; after a pronoun or noun it means -self or very:

• même le jour (even the day) against le même jour (the same day)
• lui-même (himself), moi-même (myself), le jour même (that very day)

Two fixed phrases belong here. Quand même and tout de même mean anyway, all the same - the concession squeezed into two words:

• Il pleuvait; il est sorti quand même. (It was raining; he went out anyway.)
• C'était difficile; il a réussi tout de même. (It was hard; he managed all the same.)

Quand même is also the everyday exclamation of mild outrage (Quand même! - honestly!), which is a bonus, not a trap.

Despite in French: malgré

Malgré takes a noun, and only a noun:

• Malgré la pluie, nous sommes sortis. (Despite the rain, we went out.)
• Malgré ses efforts, il a échoué. (Despite his efforts, he failed.)

The formal variant is en dépit de: en dépit de la crise, l'entreprise embauche (despite the crisis, the firm is hiring).

What malgré cannot do is take a clause. For despite the fact that, standard French switches construction to bien que + subjunctive. You will absolutely hear malgré que + subjunctive in conversation, and a few respectable authors have used it, but it remains non-standard: in an exam or a letter it reads as an error, so treat bien que as the safe spelling of the same idea.

On the other hand: en revanche and par contre

For a plain two-sided contrast rather than a concession, French uses en revanche and par contre (on the other hand):

• J'aime le thé; mon frère, en revanche, préfère le café. (I like tea; my brother, on the other hand, prefers coffee.)
• Le restaurant est cher; par contre, les portions sont énormes. (The restaurant is dear; on the other hand, the portions are huge.)

They are near-perfect synonyms with a sociological difference: par contre is more spoken and has been sniffed at by purists for two centuries, en revanche is the one style guides bless. Both are fine; in formal writing, en revanche buys you peace.

Alors que and tandis que (whereas) do the same job inside one sentence, with the indicative: il travaille, alors qu'elle se repose (he works, whereas she rests).

The register table

Common mistakes English speakers make

The indicative after bien que. Bien qu'il est riche is wrong, every time. Bien que and quoique take the subjunctive without exception.

The subjunctive after même si. The mirror-image error. Même si is an si clause and takes the indicative: même s'il pleut, never même s'il pleuve.

Malgré + clause. Malgré il pleuvait is not French, and malgré que is non-standard. A noun after malgré, or rebuild with bien que.

Même in the wrong slot. Même le jour is even the day; le même jour is the same day; le jour même is that very day. Park même directly in front of what it modifies and the meaning looks after itself.

Treating cependant like mais. Cependant is an adverb: in careful writing it wants a full stop or semicolon before it. Mais is the one that joins two clauses across a bare comma.

See also

• Connectors of cause and consequence - donc, alors, par conséquent, ainsi and d'où: therefore, thus and hence get the same treatment.
• The subjunctive after conjunctions - why bien que sits on the fixed subjunctive list, and who its neighbours are.
• Concession clauses - quoi que, où que, quel que soit and the whatever system, plus the quoique / quoi que spelling trap.
• si clauses - the golden rule that même si inherits.
• The French grammar cheatsheet - the whole grammar map at a glance.