Learn French: Mon grand-père a bien dormi grâce au silence. - My grandfather slept well thanks to the silence.

Mon grand-père a bien dormi grâce au silence.

My grandfather slept well thanks to the silence.

Breakdown of Mon grand-père a bien dormi grâce au silence.

to the / at the (masculine singular)

mon

Questions & Answers about Mon grand-père a bien dormi grâce au silence.

Why is bien placed between a and dormi?

In French compound tenses like the passé composé, short and common adverbs (like bien, mal, déjà, beaucoup) go directly between the auxiliary verb (a) and the past participle (dormi). While English puts it at the end ('slept well'), saying a dormi bien sounds unnatural in French.

Why does the sentence use au in grâce au silence?

The phrase for 'thanks to' is grâce à. Because silence is a masculine noun (le silence), the preposition à must combine with le to form the mandatory contraction au.

Could I say à cause du silence instead?

You could grammatically, but it changes the meaning! In French, grâce à is used for positive outcomes ('thanks to'). If you use à cause de ('because of'), it implies the cause was a bad thing. Since sleeping well is a good thing, grâce au silence is the right choice.

If the sentence were about my grandmother, would dormi change to dormie?

No. Because the auxiliary verb here is avoir (a), the past participle dormi does not change to match the subject. It would still be Ma grand-mère a bien dormi.