Conjuctions and connectors

We use until, not before, when an action continues to a particular time and then stops:

• I just carried on having lessons until my instructor said I was ready to take the driving test.

Conjunctions: hardly, no sooner, scarcely

After hardly and scarcely the second clause usually begins with when or before; after no sooner it begins with than or when:

We’d hardly driven out of our road before we were shouting at each other.

I’d no sooner passed my test than/when my friends started asking me for lifts.

We often use the past perfect in a clause with hardly, no sooner or scarcely and a past simple in the other clause.

• (See Unit 21, 2.3 for word order in sentences with hardly, no sooner and scarcely.)

Sentence connectors: first(iy), at first; last(10, at last

• We use first or firstly to label the first point in a list and last or lastly to label the final point. We use at first to indicate that there is a contrast between two past situations, and at last to show that something happened later than hoped or expected;
• Firstly, cars like the one I learnt in have dual controls.
• At first I couldn’t get the hang of this at all.
• I passed my driving test at last, after taking it five times.
• We don’t use at last to label the last point in a list:
• First, I had to practise starting on a hill … Finally/Lastly, the instructor made me reverse around a corner. (not At last, the instructor made me reverse …)

However

• However is often a sentence connector, but can also be used:
• As an adverb when it is followed by an adjective, adverb or much/many My instructor never got annoyed, however badly I was driving (= despite how badly)
• As a conjunction when it means ‚in whatever way’: However I had the mirror positioned, I just couldn’t judge where the back of the car was.

Even so (sentence connector), even though (conjunction)