Thanks to means “because of” someone or something that helped. It names the person or circumstance behind a good result: Thanks to your help, we finished on time. It works in conversation and in essays: Thanks to the internet, many people can now work from home.
How would you use thanks to?
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thanks to + noun/person; Thanks to + noun, + clause; it was (all) thanks to + noun + that + clause
- Thanks to the new metro line, I now get to work in twenty minutes.
- It was thanks to my school English teacher that I decided to study languages.
- We found the hotel easily thanks to a very helpful taxi driver.
What changed
First versionWe finished the project early thanks to that everyone worked at weekends.
RevisionWe finished the project early because everyone worked at weekends.
It is tempting to put a whole clause after thanks to, joined with that: thanks to that everyone worked. That is not possible: thanks to is followed by a noun, a pronoun or an -ing form, not by a clause with a subject and a verb. The longer thanks to the fact that exists, but it sounds clumsy. It is simpler to say because, and that is what replaced thanks to that.
Due to and owing to also mean “because of”, but they sound official and neutral; they are used in announcements and reports: The concert was cancelled due to illness. Thanks to sounds warmer and usually names the cause of something good. About something bad, it is used only ironically: Thanks to the traffic, we missed the first half.
Your turn
___ my sister, who drove me to the airport at four in the morning, I didn't miss my flight.
Show the answer
Thanks to — My sister helped, and everything ended well: I didn't miss the flight. When the reason for a good outcome is a specific person, you say thanks to. Due to is a dry “because of”: it names circumstances and isn't used to thank people.
Write about a person who helped you achieve something. Use thanks to with their name and say exactly what went well for you.
Thanks to my colleague Anna, who spent two evenings on the slides with me, my first conference talk went really well.
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