Formal Explanations: From Clauses to Phrases
In everyday German, you explain why using causal clauses with weil or da (because/since). In formal and professional contexts, it is common to condense these clauses into prepositional phrases.
Use the prepositions wegen (because of) or aufgrund (due to). Both require the Genitive case.
Nominalizing the Cause
To transform a clause into a prepositional phrase, turn the main idea into a noun. For example, weil die Krise aktuell ist (because the crisis is current) becomes wegen der aktuellen Krise (because of the current crisis).
| Gender / Plural | Genitive Article | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Masculine | des (+ -s / -es) | wegen des Engpasses |
| Neuter | des (+ -s / -es) | wegen des Ersatzteils |
| Feminine | der | aufgrund der Krise |
| Plural | der | wegen der Rohstoffe |
Notice that any adjectives between the definite Genitive article and the noun take the ending -en.
Feminine and plural nouns change their definite article to der:
| Because of the disruption, there was a bad bottleneck yesterday. | Wegen der Störung gab es gestern einen schlimmen Engpass. |
| Due to the worldwide crisis, the factory did not work at all. | Aufgrund der weltweiten Krise hat die Fabrik gar nicht gearbeitet. |
| Because of the scarce raw materials, the supply chain is disrupted. | Wegen der knappen Rohstoffe ist die Lieferkette gestört. |
Masculine and neuter nouns change their definite article to des, and the noun itself adds an -s or -es ending:
| Because of the current bottleneck, the goods will probably remain scarce. | Wegen des aktuellen Engpasses wird die Ware wohl knapp bleiben. |
| Because of the broken spare part, we have a delay. | Wegen des kaputten Ersatzteils haben wir eine Verzögerung. |