TRANSCRIPT OF THE ABOVE VIDEO: English Grammar Lesson: The Difference Between BECAUSE and BECAUSE OF - Essential Grammar Simplified

Hi everyone, its Nicole here, and I'm back answering another one of your questions.

I had a really good grammar question this week, which I'd like to share with you. The question was, ‘what is the difference between BECAUSE and BECAUSE OF?’ There’s a big difference, believe me, and I'd like to explain it to you now, and give you some examples to make it as easy as possible, so that you never doubt yourself again, and you never make a mistake again.

So, look, it's really easy to get these two confused, ok, but they're used completely differently. The meaning is completely different and the grammar is completely different, so the purpose of BECAUSE and the purpose of BECAUSE OF - completely different. Let me show you why and how.

So, first of all, BECAUSE OF, ok, this is what we call a two-word preposition, cool, you don't need to know that. All you need to know is that BECAUSE OF, these two words are always used together, you can't separate them, you can't take one word away, or put a word in between them, they're always together like glue.

So, BECAUSE OF will always be followed by a noun, ok, remember that, BECAUSE OF plus a noun. For example, ‘Our lives have changed dramatically because of the global pandemic’. The global pandemic there, we've got a noun or a noun phrase, ok?

So, it could be followed by a the plus a noun, an adjective plus a noun, a the plus an adjective plus a noun, it doesn’t really matter but we're following it by a noun, not by a verb, ok?

So, ‘Our lives have changed because of the global pandemic’. Alternatively, ‘I can't have a pet dog because of my allergy’. So, there’s two examples using BECAUSE OF.

So, what does it mean? BECAUSE OF always shows the cause of something, it shows, I suppose, the reason why, ok? So, the reason why something happens, or the reason why something has happened. So, it's the cause of something, or the reason why something happens, has happened, or in the future, I suppose, will happen.

So, in this situation where I say, ‘I can't have a pet dog because of my allergy’, I'm basically saying the allergy is the reason why I can't have a dog. See how I've turned it around, the reason why. Or, the dog is the cause of the allergy. Does that make sense?

Another example, I said, what was it, ‘Our lives have changed dramatically because of the global pandemic’. In this situation, the global pandemic is the reason why our lives have changed, so I'm using BECAUSE OF, or the pandemic is the cause of our life changes.

So, there you go, BECAUSE OF followed by a noun, or a noun phrase, not a verb directly, and always used together, and used to introduce or to show the cause of something, or the reason why something happens. Does that make sense?

Look, instead of BECAUSE OF, we could also use OWING TO or DUE TO, they mean exactly the same, and the grammar is exactly the same as well. So, you might say, ‘We were late because of the bad weather’, or ‘We were late due to the bad weather’, or ‘we were late owing to the bad weather’. All of them mean the same grammatically as well as in meaning, and they’re used the same, with a noun or a noun phrase following.

Now, we've got the word BECAUSE on its own, and this is what we call a conjunction.

So, BECAUSE will always be followed by a clause. What does that mean? Let's make it more simple. You always follow it by a full sentence, by either a subject plus a verb, or by a subject, plus a verb, plus an object. That's what we call a clause.

So, BECAUSE by itself is followed by a subject plus a verb, or subject plus verb plus object. For example, ‘our lives have changed dramatically because we have experienced a global pandemic’. Can you see there, I'm not saying BECAUSE OF the global pandemic. I'm saying BECAUSE we have experienced a global pandemic, I'm using a subject, a verb, and an object.

Or ‘I can't have a pet dog because I am allergic to pet hair’. Again, there, I'm using a full sentence after the word because, because I am allergic to, instead of the previous sentence, which was, I can't have a pet dog because of my allergy, that was a noun. So, here, I'm using the verb. Does that make sense?

It's easy when you think about it, if you know the rule, you can follow it. So, the only thing you need to remember is BECAUSE OF plus a noun, and it means the cause of something. BECAUSE by itself, followed by a clause, subject-verb or subject-verb-object, and it introduces, I suppose, the explanation for something.

If you remember those two things you will never get this wrong again. You will always understand it when you hear it, or you read it, and when you use it yourself in spoken or written form, it will be correct.

I hope that has answered the question, and helped each and every one of you. Have a great day. Thanks for listening. Bye.