In the Anki deck I’m currently studying, these two sentences are given with the same English translation:
1. セーターは むらさき だったから 買いませんでした。
2. セーターは むらさき でしたから かいませんでした。
What is the difference between these two sentences, is one of them more formal than the other? Which one feels more natural?
3 comments
買う is always written with kanji in my experience
The rest is irrelevant tho I hear でした before から when the sentence ends with でした more often than だった inserted, but there no meaning difference
Short answer: there is none.
Longer answer: Informal forms can be used before conjunctions in the middle of a sentence. だったから and でしたから in the middle of a sentence are about the same (でしたから is a mite more polite sounding), both meaning “it was…”
だったから would be informal at the END of a sentence and would need to be in informal conversation.
セーターを 買わなかった。むらさき だったから。
Edit: As they are, they can both be used in a neutrally polite daily conversation.
So long as 買いません, the last verb of this sentence, is polite, then that’s the rough formality level of the sentence. The difference of だったから vs でしたから is comparably minimal.