于是/因此 and a few more

[Don_Horhe]

I can't get the difference in meaning between 于是 and 因此, despite numerous attempts by my teacher and long hours going through dictionaries and looking at example sentences for the two. To make things better, there's also 从而，故而 and 因而. It's all a big 所以 in my head.

[awela]

Hi Don, if I split to every single word you may comprehend. 于是, "于"from, "是"this/here; 因此, "因"because, "此"this.

于是, from here, in continuity

因此, because of this, in causality

[skylee]

It's all a big 所以 in my head

It does not sound wrong.

[roddy]

Think of it as a difference in usage, not meaning. Not that that helps much

[renzhe]

I might be wrong here, but I've always thought that 于是 had a temporal component. In other words, one event happens immediately following the preceding one and is directly related to it. To me, it sounds like a big "and then..." or "thereupon".

With 因此 it's more like "He killed my dog. 因此 I didn't like him". With 于是 it's more like "He killed my dog. 于是 I went back home, took a wet chicken and beat him on the head with it."

Don't know if this is correct, but that's how I understood them.

[calibre2001]

因此 - consequently ; as a result

[Don_Horhe]

Renzhe I think you're right... I was looking at yet another dictionary today, and it said that 于是 means that the second event happens immediately after the first and is almost always caused by it. 因此 just seems to be the 书面语 version of 所以, although the usage is slightly different.