BECAUSE OF or THANKS TO? How to Express the Cause - Learn English Grammar

hi everybody my name is Alisha today I'm

going to talk about the difference between because of and thanks to these

are two expressions we can use to talk about the cause of a situation or the

cause of a state but let's see maybe some key differences between how to use

them okay let's begin with the phrase because of because of so when we use

because of we use because of before a noun phrase where the noun phrase

expresses the cause of the situation or the cause of an upcoming action for

example so a few examples of this could be because of you or because of the

weather or because of the train delay in each of these example sentences I have a

noun phrase following the expression because of so these are introducing the

cause of the situation so the nuance of because of is that this noun phrase made

something possible or caused something to happen we use because of when we're

explaining a negative situation often time so something negative has happened

we can use this as I'll mention here we can use this to show appreciation to

show a positive outcome or to show our gratitude for something but when we're

talking about negative situations we often use because of to express a

negative result a negative outcome when we want to show our appreciation however

using because of we can say something like because of you I was able to pass

my test so yes we can use this expression to express negative to

express positive situations but we also tend to use this one more to express

negative situations I'll explain in just a moment some other ways to express

negative causes we tend to use because of when there's not a specific person or

a specific entity involved in this situation so for example I had to cancel

my picnic because of rain so here rain is the cause for the

maybe this is a negative situation I had to cancel my picnic and rain it's just

an entity it's not really a an organization it's not a person it's just

something out there that caused a situation to have them so in these cases

like for example a train delay or the weather or some situation outside your

control you can use because of to express that so we use because of before

a noun phrase to express the cause of a situation or the reason for a state we

can use it to talk about positive situations and negative situations but

if you want to express a negative situation a negative state it's

generally a better idea to use because of then thanks to as I'll show you in

just a moment okay so with that in mind let's look at thanks to the other point

for today thanks to just as we did with because of we introduced a noun phrase

before the expression so thanks to plus some noun phrase where the noun phrase

is the reason or is the cause of the situation or this state so again thanks

to you thanks to my teacher thanks to my parents here you my teacher my parents

these are the noun phrases these introduce the reason or the cause of the

state or the situation so the nuance with thanks to again is that the sonow

phrase has made something possible yes but there's a nuance of appreciation in

most cases the word Thanks here thank like to express gratitude to express

appreciation is the route here so there's typically a nuance of

appreciation there's gratitude we can however use this sarcastically so

sarcastically means to use to create the opposite meaning so we can use this

expression sarcastically to show anger if we use thanks to plus a negative

situation for example thanks to you we're late for the movie this is a

sarcastic use of the expression thanks to the speaker is actually unhappy here

the speaker uses the expression thanks to you which is intending to show

appreciation however its followed by this late for the movie

we're late for the movie a negative situation so this is what's called

sarcasm creating the opposite meaning of the words that are actually used in the

expression so we can use thanks too to show our anger in a situation we

typically use thanks to when there's a person or an entity to show our

appreciation to so in these cases I've used you my teacher and my parents these

are people you could use an organization a school maybe a community center for

example so something some organization some person some entity that you can

show your appreciation to we can use thanks to in that case you might also

hear the expression no thanks to to show someone who impeded something so to

impede means to get in the way of or maybe to make it difficult to do

something else so in an example sentence I finally got a new job no thanks to my

old boss so again after no thanks to we have a noun phrase in this case my old

boss so no thanks to shows no appreciation for something however

there's still a result there's still an outcome I finally got a new job but no

thanks to my old boss so I did it without the help of my old boss or

perhaps my old boss tried to make it difficult for me to do something to get

a new job so you might hear no thanks to which shows no appreciation for that

person or that entity so please be careful if you want to show your

appreciation you should use thanks too and of course Express a positive outcome

here so thanks to is better when you're talking about people and entities and

there's a positive situation you can use thanks to to express sarcasm to to

create sarcasm and express anger if however you just want to be very clear

all the time you can use because of to express negative situations without

creating sarcasm so a simple negative situation like my picnic was cancelled

because of rain that's much much better with because of it sounds much more

straight forward and there's no sarcasm in that case so you can use because of

for positive situations and negative situations but if you want to express

something related to a person or to an entity try using thanks to instead it'll

sound a little more appreciative otherwise you can stick to because of

alright so those are a few key differences between the phrases because

of and thanks to I hope that was useful for you if you have any questions please

let us know in the comment section below this video

thanks very much for watching please give this video a thumbs up if you liked

it subscribe to our channels too so you don't miss anything and also check us

out at English class 101.com for other good stuff as well thanks very much for

watching this episode and I will see you again soon