Skip to main content

Grateful or thankful?

We use grateful to talk about how we feel when someone is kind to us or does us a favour:

  • [a message on a thank-you card]
  • Thank you so much for helping us move house. We are so grateful.
  • Love
  • Mark and Rose
  • [at the end of a formal letter]
  • I would be very grateful if you could send me more information about your company for my school project.
  • Not: I would be thankful …

We usually use thankful when we are relieved that something unpleasant or dangerous didn’t happen:

  • A: I heard you were in an accident. Are you okay?
  • B: I’m fine. There was some damage to the car. I’m just thankful that no one was injured.