Using an inanimate subject at the level of “The rain caused the event to be canceled” is basic knowledge. At top universities, students are expected to use inanimate subjects with verbs of emotion, causation, and deprivation as well.
Basic Rules
Use verbs of causation, permission, and obstruction together with inanimate subjects:
- allow / enable A to do “make it possible for A to do”
- prevent / keep A from doing “prevent A from doing”
- force / drive A to do “make A have no choice but to do”
- cost A B “cause A to lose B, such as time or life”
- rob / deprive A of B “take B away from A”
Conversion pattern: Recast a Japanese sentence of the form “Because of (cause), (person) experienced (result)” as the English transitive structure “(Cause) makes (person) experience (result).”
Japanese: Long hours of smartphone use worsened his eyesight.
English: Hours of smartphone use took a toll on his eyesight.
Japanese: A single failure did not make her give up.
English: A single failure was not enough to make her give up.
Japanese: Because of insufficient funds, the plan could not be carried out.
English: A lack of funds prevented the plan from being carried out.
Japanese: The accident deprived him of the use of one leg.
English: The accident deprived him of the use of one leg.
Points to Note
① With an inanimate subject, first create a noun phrase expressing the cause: change the verb “use for a long time” into the noun phrase “hours of use,” and “funds are insufficient” into “a lack of funds.”
② prevent / keep take “from + gerund.” “× prevent to do” is incorrect.
③ Be careful not to overuse inanimate subjects: Making every sentence use one sounds unnatural. Using them two or three times in one answer is enough to earn credit for natural English.
④ Idiomatic expressions such as take a toll on (cause a burden or damage) and cost A B (make A pay a sacrifice) are also commonly used with inanimate subjects. Learn them together as vocabulary.
- allow/enable (possibility), prevent/keep...from (obstruction), force/drive (compulsion)
- cost A B (make A pay a sacrifice), deprive A of B (take away)
- Convert the cause into a noun phrase before making it an inanimate subject
- Do not force yourself to use them repeatedly in one answer. Limit them to effective locations
Practice
- Translate using an inanimate subject: “Because of a traffic jam, he was late for the meeting” (use cost or make).
- Translate using an inanimate subject: “Thanks to the discovery, many lives were saved” (use enable).
- Translate using an inanimate subject: “The war deprived him of his family” (use deprive).