Puis vs ensuite

Question

Salut! In the last sentence I had written “ensuite” instead of puis but this is marked incorrect. I thought they were interchangeable? Please can you tell me the difference?

Accepted Answer

Hi Rhea,
This is interesting and of course, although the two words are very similar in meaning, the context is always important.
In this case, the first 'then' describes what the cat does as consecutive actions and both ensuite and puis are accepted.
ensuite /puis = après cela / plus tard 
puis is often at the beginning of a sentence.
The last 'then'  is more final -
Puis, il va dormir = Then, he goes to bed 
You could have had 'finalement' as an end to the story so to speak.
Anyway, that's my take on it.

Answer

Hi Rhea,Looking at the synonyms for both, and using après as the test; it seems to me that there is strong synonymy between puis and après, but weak between ensuite and après.This leads me to believe that in the context that you are querying puis would be the most appropriate, although they are broadly similar (ensuite / puis) however they are not interchangeable in the context of the exercise.This is my take, but let's see what the other contributors may say.Jim

Answer

Hi Rhea, it seems to me as if both ensuite and puis are OK in this case. You can read more here: https://www.reddit.com/r/French/comments/dx7gm2/whats_the_difference_between_ensuite_apr%C3%A8s_and/

Just a general remark: in the self-grading tests, what looks like errors in your sentence are actually alterations to make it conform to the one answer deemed the most appropriate. There often are alternate ways to phrase a sentence which are not recognized by kwiziq. That doesn't mean they are wrong.

When you see alternate suggestions, they often sound more "French" or are useful phrases or idioms. It always is a good idea to look deeper.

Answer

Given that ensuite is an adverb it begs the question in my mind as to what verb was it modifying in the text?

I agree that the two are similar, but I argue not in this context and that puis is the most appropriate.

Maybe we need Cécile's expertise here?

Jim

Answer

Thank you all for your responses. Much appreciated!