La cause est facile à comprendre.

Breakdown of La cause est facile à comprendre.

être
to be
facile
easy
comprendre
to understand
la cause
the cause

Questions & Answers about La cause est facile à comprendre.

Why do we use à here instead of de? I've seen facile de before.
You use facile à when the specific subject of the sentence is the thing being acted upon (here, La cause is the thing being understood). You use facile de for impersonal statements starting with "It is", such as Il est facile de comprendre la cause (It is easy to understand the cause).
Are there other adjectives that use this same [adjective] + à + [infinitive] structure?
Yes! Other common adjectives that follow this exact same pattern include difficile (difficult), impossible (impossible), and agréable (pleasant). For example: Ce livre est difficile à lire (This book is difficult to read).
How does the noun la cause relate to the preposition à cause de from this lesson?
The phrase à cause de literally translates to "at the cause of", which is why it means "because of" in English (usually pointing to a negative or neutral outcome). In this specific sentence, however, la cause is just functioning as a regular standalone noun meaning "the cause" or "the reason".

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