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Viele Kinder in Afghanistan müssen arbeiten und ihren Familien helfen zu überleben. Das ist mit ein Grund, weshalb in Afghanistan zu wenige Kinder eine Schule besuchen. Sie arbeiten in Bergwerken, in der Landwirtschaft oder verkaufen irgendwelche Dinge. Vor allem in Kabul sind viele Kinder auf der Straße anzutreffen, die versuchen, hier ein bisschen Geld zu verdienen.

The only thing I don't understand here is why you would add a mit between Das ist and ein Grund, weshalb.

Pons says weshalb means why, and Collins gives der Grund, weshalb … (the reason why …) as an example. So, I really can't figure out what the function of mit is here.

Source: https://www.kinderweltreise.de/kontinente/asien/afghanistan/alltag-kinder/kinder/

3 Answers 3

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... mit ein Grund simply means, that there are other reasons as well (- at least it does not rule them out). To emphasize the contrary, you could state der einzige Grund or in the mathematical sense eine hinreichende Bedingung. As usual, see DWDS Korpora for more examples.

Remark: Mit is used here as an adverb, see DWDS.

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"Es ist mit ein Grund, weshalb" simply means "it is one of the reasons why".

0

Mit ein Grund is typically used when you both don't want to pretend it is the only reason, and you don't want to exagerate or simplify, but you also don't want to explicitly name the other reasons that come into play and also you don't want to really quantify/estimate the impact of the one reason you name. So you can use it to sound a little a elaborate/sophisticated while still remaining vague and without wasting much time/effort on going deeper than necessary into the matter.

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