おかげで means "thanks to": it credits a good result to a person or a cause, with a touch of gratitude. A noun takes before it, a な-adjective takes な, and a verb or an い-adjective goes straight in – a verb usually in the た-form.
、。
Thanks to my teacher, I got good at Japanese.
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Thanks to practicing every day, I can play the piano now.
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Thanks to the good weather, we could enjoy the cherry blossoms.
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Thanks to the room being quiet, I sleep well.
- × 先生おかげで → 先生のおかげで
- × 静かだおかげで → 静かなおかげで
At the end of a sentence it becomes おかげだ or おかげです: "it's thanks to".
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It's thanks to you that I passed.
おかげで or せいで
blames a cause for a bad result. おかげで is for good results, so using it for a bad one sounds sarcastic: "thanks a lot".
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The game was called off because of the rain.
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Thanks to you, I was late.
Sarcastic.
If you just mean "because of" something bad, use せいで, or the neutral or .
おかげさまで
is a set phrase for answering "How are you?" or "How did it go?". It thanks the listener in general terms, whether or not they actually helped. It is polite; to a friend you would just say
.
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I graduated without a hitch, thank you.
Lingaku