"Grâce à sa bonté" instead of "Grâce à sa gentillesse"??

Question

I said "Grâce à sa bonté et à sa joie de vivre" instead of "Grâce à sa gentillesse et à sa joie de vivre" and was marked wrong. Isn't "bonté" French for "Kindness"? Thanks.

Accepted Answer

Hi Michael,
Kindness (gentillesse)  is a quality that makes you do kind ( nice) things for others.
Bonté is more 'goodness' and a virtue in my opinion.
Just a bit over the top for the context.
Hope this helps!

Answer

In general, there will be more than one French word covering the meaning of a given English term. They may have slightly different connotations and flavors and not be entirely interchangeable. That's where a dictionary comes in.

I did a simple Google of "gentillesse et bonté" and the second result that showed up was for this article: https://fr.strephonsays.com/kindness-and-goodness-6978

Answer

Interesting, because a book by surrealist artist Max Ernst is titled "Une semaine de bonté" which is translated as "A Week of Kindness". So, a better translation of the title should be "A week of moral goodness?"