Sorting game
French grâce à or à cause de: whose viewpoint makes it positive?
Choose grâce à or à cause de from the speaker’s stated outcome. Sort helpful and unwelcome effects of the same rain, delay, works, timetable and wind.
- A2
- 10 words to sort
- 2 boxes
- Tap to play
- Learn this in the A2 notebook →
In short
Choose from the outcome as the speaker presents it. Grâce à la pluie, notre réserve est pleine welcomes the rain’s effect. À cause de la pluie, notre pique-nique est annulé presents an unwelcome effect. The word pluie itself is neither a permanently positive nor a permanently negative cause.
Yellow the idea to rememberBlue French to learn
In ordinary, non-ironic use, grâce à credits a helpful cause, while à cause de commonly frames a cause as responsible for a problem. The same event can help one person and inconvenience another. The sorting examples make the evaluation explicit so you can choose from the context.
Tap a word, then the box it belongs in.
A train delay can help a late passenger
A delay does not have one fixed evaluation in every sentence. The passenger who arrives late may welcome being able to catch the train. Another passenger may miss an appointment because the same service arrives late. The words j’en suis ravi and cela m’a posé un problème state those contrasting viewpoints.
Grâce au retard du train, j’ai pu monter à bord.
Thanks to the train’s delay, I was able to board.
À cause du retard du train, j’ai manqué mon rendez-vous.
Because of the train’s delay, I missed my appointment.
Keep the noun construction
Both connectors here introduce a noun group. Grâce à + le becomes grâce au; grâce à + les becomes grâce aux. À cause de + le becomes à cause du; à cause de + les becomes à cause des. These contractions concern grammar, while the outcome supplies the viewpoint.
| Cause | Helpful framing | Unwelcome framing |
|---|---|---|
| la pluie | grâce à la pluie | à cause de la pluie |
| le retard | grâce au retard | à cause du retard |
| les travaux | grâce aux travaux | à cause des travaux |
Before choosing a connector, finish the thought: what happened, and does the speaker welcome or regret that result? That is a more useful decision than memorising a list of “good” and “bad” nouns.