How to Explain Cause and Effect English Grammar with examples

livestream my name is alicia and in this

week’s live lesson we are going to talk

about how to explain cause and effect in

this week’s live lesson i’m going to

talk about some basic vocabulary choices

and some basic patterns we use

especially transition words that we use

to express the cause and effect

relationship so in today’s lesson i am

going to talk about uh some patterns we

use in professional or in business

situations and i’m also going to talk

about some things that we say more often

in everyday conversation so i hope that

everybody finds something

they can use to express this

relationship a little bit more clearly

okay so as you joined please please

please please please make sure to hit

the like button and share this video so

that other people can find today’s

lesson that would be super super cool

uh okay let’s go to some announcements

while we wait for everyone to join us

first a new announcement this week the

first announcement this week is about

this banner

at the bottom of the screen

uh this get your free worksheets it says

right here the team has created some

practice worksheets for you so i’ll show

you the page here so if you click the

link below the video on youtube or above

the video if you’re watching on facebook

you will find this page

and scroll down on this page to find the

different worksheets you can choose so

there are like uh adjective noun related

worksheets phrases ways to practice a

lot of different topics and a lot of

different things so check this out you

can download these you can download all

of these and practice so these are pdf

worksheets not just like vocabulary

reference pages but actual worksheets

for you to practice so check this out if

you are interested you will find this

all from the link at

englishclass101.com so check the link

below the video

on youtube or above the video on

facebook you need your name and an email

address uh to make an account if you

don’t have an account it’s free so check

this out uh the team has a bunch of new

stuff there so i hope that is helpful

for you okay

that’s announcement number one

announcement number two as always if you

have questions for me please send them

to me please send me your questions for

the weekly q and a question and answer

series ask alicia this is an old

screenshot from the series but if you

have some question that pops up in your

studies about a vocabulary word

prepositions you have some grammar

questions whatever you can send it to me

here

the official question submission page is

at englishclass101.com

ask hyphen alicia there is a youtube uh

link there’s a link to that in the

youtube description so don’t send me

your questions in comments on facebook

or youtube or whatever there are way too

many videos and i can’t i can’t read all

your comments i just it’s it’s not

possible so please send them on the

official question submission page i will

definitely definitely read your question

i’m always checking for new questions so

please please please please please send

them to me there okay cool all right

that’s all for announcements also if you

want to follow me on social media this

is my social media handle you can find

the links for instagram and twitter in

the youtube description too

all right it looks like everything is

rolling hi everyone uh hi eric

conwell jude hello bahra

crazy dawn hey what’s up jorge andres hi

from cuba what’s up hey

uh carmen good evening carmen hi uh

facebook also is with us hi everybody

han from myanmar hi there welcome juan

hello hello one uh sheena from the

philippines welcome sherpa good morning

hello everyone okay oh someone i can’t

read your name from cambodia sorry i

can’t read your name but hi okay

everyone is here so let’s look at

today’s lesson topic

today’s lesson topic as i said is about

how to explain cause and effect so

today’s lesson is going to start with

some very basic

some basic information and then we’ll

talk about some professional

patterns and then we’ll talk about a lot

of example sentences so here are today’s

lesson boards all right so first we’re

going to express we’re going we’re going

to talk about what is cause and effect

so we’ll break down these two key

vocabulary words and talk about some

transition words second we’re going to

look at some more professional

vocabulary because these kinds of

expressions are used in the news a lot

and finally we’re going to look at a few

example sentences and you will have a

chance to send me your own examples as

well okay let’s begin so let’s start

cause and effect what is it also if you

haven’t please make sure to like and

share the video i’m gonna do that now i

forgot

so let’s like and share the video so

other people can find the lesson and

then we’ll begin but um okay cool i’ve

done it all right let’s get it started

okay

cause and effect cause and effect what

what what what even is this okay so

first cause what is a cause a cause is

the reason something happens or the

reason something starts right so this

can be a good thing or it can be a bad

thing or it can be just a neutral thing

right so a cause is the reason behind

something the reason something begins

the reason or ends as well right so the

reason something happens that’s our

cause

then the effect the other side of

today’s lesson an effect with an e

so effect with an e is a uh is the noun

yeah effect with an a is the verb in

most cases so

effect so the effect is the result or

the outcome of something right so after

the cause so something happens we have

the result that is the effect the effect

with an e okay all right so

here is a very basic example sentence

that shows both sides of this our cause

and our effect

i was hungry

i bought a sandwich okay i was hungry so

i bought a sandwich and i probably ate

the sandwich

right very basic sentence yeah here’s my

cause i was hungry

here’s my effect i bought a sandwich

okay so this is the effect the thing

excuse me the thing that happens because

of the cause right

so this is what we’re going to practice

today and we’re going to talk about many

different ways to express this

relationship between these two okay all

right so first point here i have so

connecting these two so this little

coordinating conjunction is probably the

most commonly used word to connect our

cause and effect right so we use so

in everyday conversation we use it in

text messages and email and so on so is

i would say probably the most commonly

used uh word we use to connect

these uh parts this cause and effect to

show the cause and effect relationship

okay so

let’s talk about other transition words

and expressions that we use to show

these relationships and let’s talk about

some of the different things we can

communicate with this

so we’ll follow the same pattern so a is

our cause and b is our effect here so we

used so as our transition word in this

sentence i was hungry so i bought a

sandwich right cause and effect very

basic

then we also have this word therefore

therefore

so therefore also means so yeah but it

sounds way more formal way more formal

so i could say i was hungry therefore i

bought a sandwich so this sentence is

100 correct this is totally fine i was

hungry therefore i bought a sandwich but

therefore is a very formal word like it

sounds quite unnatural to use a very

formal word in this sentence this is a

very casual situation right so if i say

i was hungry therefore i bought a

sandwich it sounds really funny it

sounds silly so if you want to make a

joke sometimes people do you can use

this word here but

in most cases we should use

okay so

therefore and so do mean the same thing

but therefore is much more formal

here’s one more that sounds quite uh

maybe i wouldn’t say it sounds formal

but it sounds kind of business-like so

again not something we use in everyday

conversations so much

the expression is as a result

as a result as a result

blah blah blah for example i was hungry

as a result i bought a sandwich so this

one again is correct we express the

cause and effect relationship but

when we say i was hungry as a result i

bought a sandwich it sounds very

official it sounds like something it’s

like i’m doing for my job yeah it sounds

kind of professional it’s not so like

high level formal but it sounds too

official it sounds like this the

official steps in my job for the day

buying my sandwich so

it doesn’t sound very natural it sounds

a little bit funny so again if you want

to make a joke you can kind of use these

expressions instead of so

but the most natural choice here is so

so these express very basic cause and

effect relationship but they communicate

different feelings

okay

uh all right i’m looking for your

questions

uh what is the difference between effect

and affect uh there’s a lot uh basically

as i said before effect with an e is the

noun effect uh with an a is the verb

form so

i i don’t have time to cover all of the

differences i have a video on the

internet about this topic maybe i can

link it somewhere

okay uh others he failed in mathematics

therefore he started working on this

subject says jannatul on facebook very

good okay he failed in mathematics

therefore he started working on this

subject that sounds good nice nice okay

naeli says i’m cold so i’m maybe instead

of use a sweater uh so i’m wearing a

sweater maybe yeah okay

uh andre says can we use so at the start

of the sentence yes uh so

this i just did it so this uh this uses

so at the beginning of the sentence to

connect our ideas but very very commonly

in speech especially we start our

sentence with so so we use that

to connect our ideas i do it a lot in

these live streams right we do it to con

to show our ideas are connecting across

sentences we do this a lot yeah

absolutely

okay

all right let’s continue so the next one

uh the next

pair i want to talk about

uh these two expressions also

show a cause and effect relationship

however

the difference here is that

in situations where the cause is a

problem we use these okay so in these in

these two the two i’m going to talk

about here are to fix this and to

address this these are two transition

words yeah so these introduce the cause

and effect relationship but they show a

problem solution

relationship so still a cause and effect

right but we have this uh nuance we have

this feeling behind these so let’s take

a look the first one here is to fix this

to fix this so the word here is fix

right to fix this that shows us there’s

some problem

the cause in the situation is a problem

i’m going to share some examples of this

later we have a problem to fix this

solution this is the pattern we use here

so i’m going to share this

in part three some examples

same thing here to address this to

address this maybe some of you don’t

know this word as a verb to address

something so that means to put your

energy towards something to use your

energy for something to address a

problem that’s usually what we use this

in to address a problem means to put

your energy

toward a problem to use your energy for

something to address a problem to

address an issue so again we use this

one

to talk about a problem so the

difference here fix sounds like we’re

going to solve the problem to address

means we’re going to maybe use our

energy maybe not fix it yet but we’re

going to put our energy toward that

thing

this is the difference between to fix

and to address okay

all right uh one says i had a problem

with my car so i called a mechanic nice

okay cesar says i was stressed so i

listened to merengue and salsa music

very nice okay oh my gosh please don’t

send many messages in the chat uh alum

yeah also

i’m not going to proofread your

sentences live either um i’m looking for

questions about today’s topic

i don’t see okay what’s the difference

between result and outcome uh

general so yeah here today i’m talking

about effect results outcome

generally we use them in the same way

uh we

i would say in most cases we talk about

like the result of research or the

outcome of a study or something like

that there are some cases where uh we

would maybe use uh results instead of

outcome for example like in sports like

the result of the match we wouldn’t talk

so much about the outcome of the match

it kind of depends a little bit on the

context yeah generally we use them in

similar ways okay time’s going quickly

so this is the beginning someone says

what is cause what is effect please go

back to the beginning of today’s lesson

okay all right let’s

take a break and then we’ll go to part

two we’ll talk about some professional

vocabulary and then we’ll go to some

examples so if you missed it earlier

there is a banner at the bottom of the

screen this says get your free

worksheets the team has created i’ll

show you again

the team has created

some pdf worksheets so not a pdf

vocabulary sheets like i’ve showed you

many times before but there are i’ll

scroll down there are a lot of new

worksheets to practice different parts

of speech to practice phrases and

expressions for certain situations

so check this out you can find this from

the link below the video on youtube or

above the video on facebook

here if you scroll down you’ll find the

one two three four steps to get these so

if you have an account at

englishclass101.com you can go download

these that’s fine just log in yeah if

you do not have an account it’s free you

can make one right here so check this

out if you want to get these worksheets

in practice yeah

okay so that is our break uh let’s go to

part two part two is going to cover some

kind of more professional i think

expressions okay so let’s get into it if

you haven’t please please please make

sure to hit the like button and share

this video so other people can find

today’s lesson

all right let’s talk about vocabulary so

more professional vocabulary i want to

talk about this uh these we’re going to

talk about two main patterns uh because

these two patterns are used a lot in

news uh like on in tv news in written

news in the newspaper and we also use

them at work too so these sound a little

more professional we don’t use these

expressions a lot when we’re talking

with friends and family members maybe in

a serious situation but these are

important to know because they’re very

common expressions okay so let’s go

let’s take a look at the first one

so the first pattern i want to talk

about is

effect

was caused by

cause

effect was caused by cause now for this

part for part two here please note this

bracket this is called a bracket yeah

these brackets these are all noun

phrases so we need to use a noun phrase

noun phrase was caused by

cause okay so we use this to show again

the cause and effect relationship but

it’s with a different sentence pattern

okay so let’s look at some examples of

this

first

heavy traffic was caused by

a car accident

heavy traffic was caused by

a car accident so let’s break this

sentence down heavy traffic is my effect

yeah so in this sentence i’m talking

about the effect first

why maybe this is more important in this

situation or i want to express this

really clearly so heavy traffic was

caused by don’t forget this preposition

a car accident so here my noun phrase is

a car accident

this is my cause okay so we use this

to express cause and effect

in a situation where we want to express

the effect first in the sentence so

maybe the effect is the most important

thing in the sentence okay heavy traffic

was caused by a car accident

and in this example i’m using was so i’m

using past tense

for these a lot because we as i said we

often use these patterns for reports

yeah so something that happened in the

past we often use these patterns to talk

about something that happened earlier

that day or earlier that week before

right but we can also use these in other

tenses too i wanted to focus on past

tense

okay let’s look at one more example and

then i’ll try to check uh the chat for

your

uh information for your ideas okay next

one this red spot on my skin

was caused by a medication

this red spot on my skin

was caused by a medication okay so a

medication this is a different way to

say by a medicine a type of medicine

okay so we use this we might use this

when we visit a doctor’s office or when

we explain something to someone we

explain something serious in this case

so this red spot on my skin so maybe

here on my skin i have some

mark that’s really strange looking and

someone asks are you okay

so i can say this red spot on my skin

was caused by

a medication so again here’s my effect

the red spot on my skin yeah here’s my

effect it’s a long noun phrase but this

is a noun phrase

and my cause a medication

a medication okay this red spot on my

skin was caused by a medication okay so

we use this pattern to express cause and

effect with the effect first okay very

common pattern though

uh all right i am looking for your

example sentences

raphael says the fire was caused by a

candle good good example sentence yes

okay others um

cancer is caused by smoking says yoon

okay good example all right

um the leaking was caused by high oh

this leak maybe this leak

this leak was caused by high pressure

okay nice examples all right so you can

continue to send your examples in the

chat i will check let’s go to the second

pattern here so the opposite then so how

do we express the same thing with the

cause

first yeah so i want to talk about kind

of the opposite of this pattern okay so

in this pattern again we have these

brackets which show our noun phrase yeah

cause

has or have you may see this used

sometimes uh results or resulted

depending on the tense

effect so

cause has resulted in effect

cause has resulted in effect so don’t

forget this preposition to result in to

result in so that means the outcome of

something was

oh alonso cool thanks for supporting our

team that’s awesome on youtube super

cool okay so let’s look at some examples

and then i’ll talk about kind of the the

details here that i’ve mentioned so

here’s one

low ticket sales resulted in

cancellation of the event

low ticket sales resulted in

cancellation of the event what is

happening here okay so low ticket sales

here is my noun phrase yeah my noun

phrase this is my cause so the reason

for something low ticket sales resulted

in resulted in is right here resulted in

resulted in

cancellation of the event

cancellation of the event here is my

effect so

here’s our cause low ticket sales so in

other words a different way to say the

sentence is the event was cancelled

because of low ticket sales okay that’s

what we’re expressing here so we use

this resulted in maybe some of you

noticed that this i use resulted there’s

no has or have here so when i use just

this simple past tense verb this is

finished it’s done i’m talking about

something maybe it happened last week or

last month it’s done it does not affect

me today okay so low ticket sales maybe

have resulted in cancellation of the

event could also be a possible sentence

that could also be okay to use so low

ticket sales have resulted in

cancellation of the event might be used

like on the day of cancellation maybe uh

if for example the event organizer

emails all of the people who bought

tickets they might say

low ticket sales have resulted in

cancellation of the event we are very

sorry

so you might see that but this is how we

express this cause and effect

relationship oh thanks again alonso

that’s cool

uh okay

others the

lack andre says the lack of action maybe

lack of action resulted in the failure

of the project in the failure

so make sure a noun phrase yeah the

failure of the project so lack of action

okay

i’m looking for some other examples i

don’t see other examples of this one yet

so let’s go to the next one maybe you

have some ideas so the next one poor

diet and exercise habits

can result

in poor health

later in life

poor diet and exercise habits here’s my

cause

in this case i put can yeah so it’s

possible too so we can make some changes

to these structures

poor diet and exercise habits can result

poor health

later in life so here’s poor health is

my effect yeah so my noun phrase effect

poor diet and exercise habits can result

in poor health later in life

all right so we use these patterns to

talk about cause and effect so depending

on the important what is so think about

when you choose these scent between

these two is my effect more important is

the cause more important so

you can use both sentences right it’s up

to you to choose which one you feel

expresses your idea the best okay

um all right i’m looking for some uh

some examples

the heavenly flood

imagery on facebook sorry if i said your

name wrong resulted in destruction of

many houses that’s good i’m just i’m

curious about the

the vocabulary choice heavenly so we use

heavenly for things that are really

really good like sounds like heaven

right maybe the heavy flood maybe that’s

what it is the heavy flip

resulted

in then it’s good

okay so this is part two kind of like i

said more professional more like news

report reporting use so you might use

that at work so keep an eye out for

those patterns also please don’t forget

key thing here but these prepositions

caused by and resulted in don’t forget

those little prepositions they’re very

important okay

all right let’s uh take one more super

quick break and then we’ll go uh to part

three just a few example sentences so

you can see the different ways that we

express this relationship okay so uh

quickly quickly quickly uh if you missed

it earlier the team has put together

some worksheets some practice worksheets

so that you can actually write and

practice not just read and practice so

take a look at the link below the video

if you’re watching on youtube or above

the video if you’re watching on facebook

i will show you these again

oh my gosh alonzo thanks very much for

supporting our team we all really really

appreciate it yeah our whole team thanks

you very much okay all right so let’s go

to the last part of today’s lesson then

yeah okay so the last part of today’s

lesson is just a few example sentences a

few more example sentences so that you

can see how we uh show these different

relationships or should we sorry how we

show these relationships in different

ways okay so

let’s go oh some examples are coming in

awesome okay uh yoon says deforestation

in the world resulted in cutting a lot

of trees

okay maybe yeah i think that’s close so

maybe like a desire for products or

whatever

resulted in cutting a lot of trees as

well yeah okay um all right i’m going to

move on to the last part because time is

i’m out of time so let’s go to three

more example sentences that use the

transition words i talked about earlier

okay so first one

your job performance last year was

excellent your job performance last year

was excellent therefore

we’d like to offer you a promotion your

job performance last year was excellent

therefore we’d like to offer you a

promotion so here i use that formal

therefore therefore so this is a formal

situation right so it’s a work a work

situation where

someone is making an offer a formal job

offer so therefore is used to show this

cause and effect what’s the cause your

job performance last year was excellent

so this is a good cause right

therefore

so we’d like to offer you a promotion so

promotion

means you get a new title you move up at

work right so your job performance last

year was excellent therefore we’d like

to offer you a promotion

so so is also correct here but it

doesn’t sound formal so therefore sounds

more efficient

okay

all right let’s move on to the next one

here’s one a problem one okay so let’s

talk about some problem example

sentences

our website

suddenly stopped working

to fix this we called our it support

team

our website suddenly stopped working to

fix this we called our it support team

okay so this is one example of a problem

solution cause and effect right here’s

my cause our website suddenly stopped

working right a problem we introduced a

problem here

to fix this to fix this where this means

the problem to fix this we called our it

support team so it information

technology the computer team right so to

fix this we called our it support team

here’s my solution here’s my answer to

the problem yeah so we express this

cause-and-effect relationship in this

case a problem-solution relationship we

show the connection right here

okay

so this is a really nice natural way to