In this week’s episode of the Art of Business English I want to show you how you can express reason and use some very common linking words to help you introduce supporting ideas.
As you may be aware, providing reasons and supporting ideas helps us to improve the strength of our ideas and arguments. The language that I am about to teach you is effective for both emailing and for oral communication, such as in a meeting or a negotiation.
If you have been following my podcast and posts for a while, then you should have listened to the episode on sequencing and giving examples to clarify. If you haven’t then you can check it out here. Episode 24 of the Art of Business English podcast is a great precursor to today’s episode.
Let’s take a look at the expressions that we are going to cover today. Firstly, I will give you the English, then the translation and in the last part of this post I will give you some examples to help you put the expressions into context and help you see how you can apply them to your everyday English.
Expression |
As a result of |
Because of |
Due to |
In response to |
Caused by (passive) |
To lead to |
To mean |
Owing to |
Translation |
Como consecuencia de |
Debido a |
Debido a |
En respuesta a |
Debido a |
Conducir/Llevar/Dirigir |
Significa |
Debido a |
So, as you can see from the above expressions, we commonly use these for expressing a reason for something. If we understand how to use them effectively then we are able to introduce a supporting idea that will help, make our reason or argument stronger.
Let me give you a very simple example. Look at the following scenario, taken from a customer service email response to an enquiry by a customer about the status of their order.
Example email
Dear customer,
I regret to inform you that your order has been delayed. We expect the merchandise to arrive in our warehouse shortly and hope to have the order dispatched to you in the coming days.
Yours sincerely,
Customer Service Department.
Now, as you can see here, we have made zero attempts to explain or provide a real reason for why the order has been delayed. Wouldn’t it be much better to provide a reason to help you support your excuse and make it stronger?
Let’s take a look at how we could improve this.
Improved Example email
Dear customer,
I regret to inform you that your order has been delayed. Unfortunately, this delay is owing to a problem with one of our suppliers who had a fire at their warehouse.
As a result, we have sourced the merchandise from another supplier and hope to have the order dispatched to you in the coming days.
Sorry for the inconvenience caused and should you have any further questions, then please do not hesitate to contact us.
Yours sincerely,
Customer Service Department.
As you can see, this response is an improvement over the original email. The original email was not bad, however this email is much more credible and transmits more information to the customer.
Let’s wrap things up by looking at some further examples.
Expression | Examples in context |
As a result of | This is a result of delays installing the new system on your network. |
Because of | Output Will be reduced because of an unusually high number of workers on sick leave. |
Due to | This is due to difficulties we are experiencing with the machinery. |
In response to | This is in response to recent customer feedback that the company has received. |
Caused by (passive) | This event was caused by circumstances out of our control. |
To lead to | This engineering works will lead to short-term disruptions of travel services. |
To mean | This will mean that you will receive your order in the coming days. |
Owing to | There will be a short delay in responding to customer enquires owing to planned server maintenance. |
There you have it, some very useful expressions to help you express reasons and introduce supporting ideas. Remember, these expressions are useful in both formal email communication as well as in oral communication such as meetings or negotiations.
Finally, as a native Spanish speaker, you are probably used to always saying “because”, try and start using the expressions in this post to improve your range of vocabulary. They are easy to incorporate into your next email.
I hope you find these expressions useful, be sure to leave me any comments and questions below and if you found this information useful then share it with your friends.
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Andrew Ambrosius