How to say “so” and “because” in Japanese

Probably the simplest way to build more complex sentences in Japanese is to take two simple sentences and join them together to form one longer sentence.

Just as in English, one of the most common situations where we would do this is when we want to explain the reason for doing something or to show cause and effect. That is, to say something like:

I did Y, because X happened.

Here, the word “because” is joining two separate statements – “I did Y” and “X happened” – and in doing so, explains that one of these actions is the reason for the other one.

Another way to express the above sentence is like this:

X happened, so I did Y.

This is the same information, but we’ve swapped the order of the statements and used “so” instead of “because”.

In this article, we will see how we can use the particles “kara”「から」 and “node”「ので」 to connect two actions together in this way to effectively say “so” or because”.

We’re also going to do this in both polite and informal Japanese, and we will see how the rules apply slightly differently in each case.

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Using 「よ」(yo) and 「ね」(ne) to speak more natural-sounding Japanese

In Japanese, there are a number of different particles that people use to add more emotion and personality to their sentences.

The particles that are actually used in everday life vary from region to region, with different Japanese dialects often having their own alternatives, but probably the two most common ones are “yo”「よ」 and “ne”「ね」.

In this article, we’re going to take a detailed look at how we can use each of these particles to convey different emotions. We’ll also see how we can use both of them together to express something different again.

Let’s get to it, starting with the particle “yo”「よ」!

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The particles 「から」(kara) and 「まで」(made): Saying “from” and “until” in Japanese

The particles “kara”「から」 and “made”「まで」 can be used to define the beginning and end of a range in either time or space. That is, they effectively mean “from” and “until”.

In this article, we will take a closer look at these two particles to see how we can use them correctly in sentences, and when it is appropriate to do so. We’ll also see how they both sometimes overlap with the particle “ni”「に」, as well as one way they can be used that is different from other major particles.

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Informal vs Polite Japanese: How they differ in both simple and complex sentences

Informal vs Polite Japanese

When speaking Japanese, it is always important to use the appropriate degree of politeness.

There are, broadly speaking, three levels of politeness. We can call these:

  • Informal
  • Polite
  • “Super-polite”

The main difference between each of these comes down to verb forms. There are other differences too, but for the most part, you can vary the politeness of a sentence by simply changing the verb forms.

In this article, we’ll look at how to do that for both simple and complex sentences, as well as a few other things that differ at each level.

We’ll particularly focus on the informal and polite forms because:

  1. the super-polite form is trickier, with a lot more nuance and specific expressions, and
  2. in most situations where a higher degree of politeness is ideal, the regular polite form is usually good enough.

That said, we’ll still touch on the super-polite form to give you a more complete picture of Japanese politeness, but we’ll save the details of the super-polite form for another time.

Another challenge with politeness in Japanese is knowing when to use each form of language. You can find my dedicated article on that topic here.

敬語・けいご・keigo

The term “keigo” is often used to refer to the super-polite form. However, the regular polite form (teineigo) is technically a form of “keigo”, so I’ve chosen not to use it here in order to avoid any possible confusion.

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Politeness in Japanese – When to Use the Different “Levels”

Politeness is an absolutely essential part of Japanese language and culture. It is always important to communicate with others using an appropriate level of politeness.

This presents two main challenges when trying to learn Japanese:

  1. Knowing when to use each politeness level
  2. Learning how to actually use them

Both of these can be quite difficult, even sometimes for native Japanese speakers.

In this article, we’re going to focus on challenge number one – knowing when to use each politeness level.

A separate article that goes into more detail about how to form sentences that fall into each politeness level is coming soon.

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Should you learn Hiragana, Katakana and Kanji? And if so, when?

When to learn Japanese characters

I’ve often said that, as a language, Japanese is simple if approached the right way. It doesn’t need to be as difficult as it is often made out to be.

However, there is no getting around the fact that if you want to read and write Japanese, there are a LOT of characters to learn.

Even if you can save yourself from months or years of confusion by grasping the fundamental grammatical structure of Japanese with a single blog post, you can’t do this with characters or vocabulary.

You need to learn them, practice reading them individually, practice reading them in different combinations, and continue to use them repeatedly until they’re firmly embedded in your long-term memory.

Tools like Anki can help tremendously, but you still need to actually do it.

This raises a few questions…

  • Do I really need to learn hiragana?
  • What about katakana?
  • Do I need to learn kanji too, and if so, how many is enough?

Then there’s the question of when…

  • When should I start learning them?
  • Is it better to dive straight in, or is it better to focus on learning other things first?

All valid questions, and particularly difficult to answer when you’re first starting out.

So, I’m going to try and answer these questions for you so you can make the best decision for yourself based on your personal goals.

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