Actually, contrary to what Regan says, this is a common expression in Chinese. The 而 in your sentence above doesn't really translate well into English. It's just a part of that particular reason-result structure. If you omit it, you'll still be understood, but having it in there sounds more natural. Have a look at this webpage: http://resources.allsetlearning.com/chinese/grammar/%22Because%22_with_%22er%22_indicating_effect They've got a nice explanation.

OMG Can't believe the answers from Chinese mates are too complex or just wrong. André is right. 真为同志们的语文感到着急><。 It is actually quite simple, "er" in this sentence can be an abbr. of "从而"--- a conjuction which be arranged after cause followed by result, so it's just like the link says but don‘t have to use ”因为“ etc.

而 is a function word. it has lots of functions: 表示并列关系，相当于“和”、“与”。 表示递进关系，相当于“而且”。 表示顺承关系，相当于“就”、“才”。 ... ... in this case i think we regard 而 as “表示顺承关系，相当于“就”、“才”“ BUT, plz leave these questions alone... because 而 comes from old chinese. it has lots of functions. in current chinese, we have some words such as 因而(so)、而且(and)、然而(however) who use 而 but in these words, each 而 has the different meaning, for example, 因而，而 means 因；而且，而 means 且； 然而，而 means 然

u have touched the center of chinese. congratulations! but for these cases, u can leave them alone. it comes from old chinese. a language represents very well a culture. so maybe u should learn a little about the chinese history especially the event: 五四运动 the goal of 五四运动 is to throw the old chinese away and use the easy common chinese. u know 成语, 五四运动 even wants to destroy 成语.....after Mao created chinese gouvernment, he even wanted to let chinese just use Pinyin and throw the character away......maybe too extreme? maybe... before 五四运动, the nongovernmental chinese was between the old chinese and the current chinese. and lots of simplified chinese were used too. the old chinese are very hard to understand and to write, so people had begun to use simplified chinese since very long ago. why do the old chinese is hard? because in old chinese, one character means one thing. so: one character has lots of meanings.....

why does chinese become like this? as u know, chinese has lots of characters whose prounenciations are the same. so we add another character to help us distinguish them. for example: 爸爸 妈妈 爷爷 奶奶 哥哥 妹妹 姐姐 弟弟 etc 爸：father 妈：mother 哥：brother why do we use two?---------to distinguish those characters whose prounenciations are also "ba" "ma" "ge". as we add the second character, we can faster get what u are talking about. other ways to add the second character: 桌子 椅子 杯子 etc 桌 means table 椅 means chair 杯 means cup but why dont we just say 桌 椅 or 杯？---这是我的桌 那是我的杯 etc？？-------same reason for those conjunctions, such as 因而、然而、所以、并且 etc 因 = 而 然 = 而 所 = 以 并 = 且 we use 因而 然而 所以 like this because if we use them alone, wow.....it is very hard to understand, as u see 而 has lots of functions.... this is why the old chinese is very very hard to understand even for us....I can even say for us, english is easier than the old chinese........... so evolution of chinese is: throw some single character away. add some character such as 子 or repeat character such as 哥哥 use the two characters whose meaning are the same to express one thing, such as 然而 as the influence of old chinese, there are still some phrases such as ur example who contain some kind of old chinese style. mostly, u can ignore it. ofc if u say a phrase with it, we cant say u r wrong, but u will give a kind of feeling that u like old chinese.... so in ur example, there is a 而 but u can ignore it. throw it away and this phrase is still correct.