In 'All About Particles', I have come across the sentence:
小川さんは語学が得意で、フランス語もイ夕リア語もできます。
(Ogawa is good at languages, he can speak both French and Italian.)
What is the use of で in this sentence? I can kind of understand it as placing the second part in context, however I would have used です, would that also work?
で like this is essentially the conjunctive form of です. You can make two separate statements: 「Aです。Bです。」 Or you can make one statement that combines the two: 「Aで、Bです。」In this usage pattern, as you note, the A part provides the context, and the で functions a bit like the English "it is A and it is B".
“で” or “ので” is a conjunction equivalent to and, so, as, and because, as in,
彼女は料理が好きで、特にパスタ料理が得意です - She is a good cooker and her specialty is pasta dishes.
ウイスキーを一杯飲んでそれから出かけました - He had a gulp of a glass of whiskey and went out.
彼は勉強家で、中国語を3年間で完全にマスターしました - He is a hard-worker, so he completely mastered Chinese in three years.
彼は言い間違えたので訂正しました - He misspoke. So he corrected it
彼は骨折で入院しました - Because of a fracture, he got hospitalized.
彼女は愛想がいいので皆に好かれています - Because (as) she is so amiable, she is liked by everybody.
