使得...
Reach for this when one situation CAUSES another to happen or change — and you want to sound serious. '使得' means 'cause/make/lead to' and connects a prior event to its consequence. 'The new policy made the price drop.' 'This change made the company unable to compete.' It's the formal causative used in news, analysis, business writing, and any place where 让 would sound too conversational. Adult, written register.
Structure
[CAUSE] 使得 [RESULT CLAUSE]
shǐde...
How to Think About It
Think of 使得 as 'this caused → that.' The thing on the LEFT is the cause; everything on the right is the resulting situation, often a full clause. Unlike 让 (which usually points at a person being affected), 使得 most often points at an abstract situation or outcome: 使得经济变差, 使得关系紧张, 使得很多人失业. If you can replace 使得 with 让 and the sentence still sounds natural, you're probably writing too casually for the context.
Examples
新政策使得房价开始下降。
Xīn zhèngcè shǐde fángjià kāishǐ xiàjiàng.
The new policy caused housing prices to start falling.
技术的进步使得越来越多的工作被机器取代。
Jìshù de jìnbù shǐde yuèláiyuè duō de gōngzuò bèi jīqì qǔdài.
Technological progress has caused more and more jobs to be replaced by machines.
这场雨使得比赛被推迟了。
Zhè chǎng yǔ shǐde bǐsài bèi tuīchí le.
This rain caused the game to be postponed.
Common Mistake
Learners use 使得 in everyday conversation, where 让 is the natural choice. 使得 is a written/formal register marker — using it in casual speech sounds like reading a textbook out loud.
这件事使得我很开心。
这件事让我很开心。
Don't Confuse With
让
Conversational causative. Use 让 in speech, 使得 in essays, news, and analysis.
使
Same family, very close in meaning. 使 is even more compressed and literary; 使得 is slightly more flexible for spoken-formal contexts.
导致
Means 'lead to' but tends to introduce negative outcomes. 使得 is neutral — the result can be good, bad, or neither.
Practice
Fill in: 这次危机____得很多公司倒闭了。
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使
Fill in: 高油价使____成本不断上升。
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得
Arrange: 使得 / 这次会议 / 关系 / 两国 / 改善 / 的
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这次会议使得两国的关系改善。
Translate to Chinese: The new law has caused many small companies to close.
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这条新法律使得很多小公司关门了。
Use 使得 to describe how one event led to a larger consequence in business or society.
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AI的发展使得很多传统工作面临挑战。
Hear It in Real Episodes
This pattern appears in 2 Fluentide episodes. Press play to hear the sentence:
阿格拉瓦尔一针见血地指出，这彻底改变了企业的“数学计算”，使得过去依赖H-1B引进人才的商业模式在经济上变得不再可行。
Agrawal hit the nail on the head by pointing out that this has completely changed the "mathematical calculation" for businesses, making the business model of relying on H-1B to bring in talent economically unfeasible in the past.
US Tech Firms Shift Jobs to IndiaAdvanced
关于高市早苗在日本大选中取得压倒性胜利这一事件，商界和分析人士普遍认为，这使得东京与北京之间的关系在短期内显著改善的希望变得十分渺茫，尽管也有部分声音认为紧张局势最终会趋于稳定。
Regarding Takaichi Sanae's overwhelming victory in the Japanese general election, business circles and analysts widely believe that this makes any significant improvement in Tokyo-Beijing relations in the short term appear very unlikely, although some voices suggest that tensions will eventually stabilize.
China–Japan Trade After Takaichi's ElectionAdvanced
Related Grammar Patterns
Acquire by listening
Hear 使得... in real Chinese, not in a textbook.
Fluentide picks the next news episode at your level, so this pattern shows up again and again in real context. The transcript marks it, the audio drills it. Free to start.