Currently I am reading some graded readers texts I am finding for free on the internet. At the moment I am tackiling this text https://tadoku.org/japanese/book/6238/, the sentence I have a question about is during a conversation taking place at pages 12 and 13 but I’ll write the conversation down below for context.
Okay the sentence I have a question about is 「別れても友だちだからさ」what I don’t understand is the だから part. From context I would understand the meaning of the sentence as “Even though we broke up, we are still friends”.
However I always thought of Xだから as “because of X” with （だ）から marking the reason of something.
But “Even though we broke up, because she is a friend” doesn’t make much sense.
So what is the usage of だから in this sentence?
Is it perhaps like a “you know” .. “Even though we broke up, we are (still) friends, you know?”
For context the conversation in the text.
「今の電話、誰から?」
「幸だよ」
「幸ってだれ？」
「前の彼女」
「え？」
「言ってなかったっけ？」
「知らない」
「何か相談があるみたいで」
「それで、明日会うの？」
「うん」
「幸さんとは別れたんでしょ」
「別れても友だちだからさ」
「友だち・・・」
「美知子も友だちが相談あるって言ったら、会うだろう？」
「そうだけど・・・」
10 comments
A lot of the time, something that could be inferred is left unsaid. There’s plenty of context, especially two sentences after where it’s more-or-less spelled out.
A’s ex-girlfriend called wanting to talk/get advice, so A is going to meet her. When B seems confused, A explains – Well, if a friend needed to talk, wouldn’t you meet up?
They’re giving the reason for why the ex-girlfriend called/why they’re meeting, so it’s not “because we broke up,” but rather “Even though we broke up, we’re still friends, so that’s why.”
The だから here is in response to 今日会うの？
We are meeting because we are still friends (even though we broke up)
I feel like you’re overthinking this massively. You’ve actually understood the sentence itself fairly well there. It means something like what you said, either something like “even when we’re apart well still be friends, or “we’ll still be friends despite breaking up”. That’s it, and you’ve picked it up. Move on! You’re all good.
That だからdefinitely means “because”.
He was like”(Yeah, but) because we’re still friends even though we were dating and we broke up, (I have a reason to see and listen to her.)”
As he got a call from another girl, his girlfriend got anxious and asked him about that girl.
The current girlfriend asked him like “Are you going to see her tomorrow? ” and “But you and Sachi broke up, right? ”
So he replied to her to explain why he has a reason to see her.
だから: Cause
さ: like
別れても: even though (we) broke up
友達: (we) friends
だから still means ‘because’ in this case.
If you put it in the front of a sentence, let’s say…
だから言ったじゃない?!
(That’s why I tried to tell you!)
‘That’s why’ would probably be a better translation. Sometimes directly translating it into ‘because’ makes the sentence weird
I usually interpret「だから」as “that’s why” or “therefore”. And based on your context, Joe (I’ll call the main person Joe for this context) is chatting with Shia/幸. But the friend Joe is beside with is confused since Shia/幸 and Joe already broke up. He basically said, “You guys broke up, so why talk/meet up?”
「幸さんとは別れたんでしょ」or “Shia san to ha wakaretan deshyo” ^
Joe responded with:
「別れても友だちだからさ」or “Wakaretemo tomodachi dakara sa”
Joe basically said that “Even though we broke up”「別れても」, “friends that’s why”「友だちだから」. I think「さ」just makes the phrase more casual(?)
Without「だから」, it’d sound like “Even though we broke up, friends”.
With 「だから」, it’d be “Even though we broke up, we are still friends”.
This is getting too messy but all I want to say is that Joe is telling his friend the reason why he still has contact and why he’ll meet Shia; because they’re still friends. Without 「だから」, his statement won’t reply to his friend’s question.
(Forgive my messiness, first time writing だからさ笑）
sort of equivalent to “innit”
It’s not “Even though we broke up, we are still friends” or “Even though we broke up, because she is a friend”, but should be “Still friends after we break up, that’s why”.
(別れても友達) = still friends even though break up
(だから) = that’s why
So the entire of (別れても友達) is being presented as the reason by adding (だから) behind it.
You are grouping them incorrectly. You seem to be grouping them by:
(別れても) (友だちだから)
When in this specific case, you’re supposed to group them like this:
(別れても友だち) (だから)
Hope that clears your doubt.
You’re not wrong with (だ)から marking a reason: the structure is basically “reason” (だ)から “result”.
That means the reason always precedes the (だ)から part.
So to use your own wording here, the “X” in the “because of X” structure you mention is everything preceeding (だ)から itself.
Ie. “Because we’re still friends even though we broke up” is correct, even if it sounds weird (and there’s a good reason why)
What I think you’re getting confused about is actually the result, the “I did Y” part if you will.
This is the same as in English: if you just said “Because we’re still friends even though we broke up”, people would be like “What?”, since without the context, that doesn’t really mean anything.
That’s why the context is important here, and you can’t understand this sentence structure without the previous context. In this conversation, that context is that this person is still choosing to meet with someone tomorrow, despite being broken up with them.
The comments about the relationship status are a bit of a diversion: it is brought up to provide the “why” context for the meeting by bringing up the status of their relationship. Why would you meet them tomorrow if you’re broken up?
The real “result” of this sentence structure is the meeting tomorrow. If you know that these people are broken up already, then the following convo cutting out that question about the break up still makes sense:
「それで、明日会うの？」
“So you’re meeting tomorrow then?”
「うん。別れても友だちだからさ」
“Yeah. Because we’re still friends even though we broke up.”
If we wanted to condense this into one “reason” (だ)から “result” type sentence that carries on its own, it could likely look something like this:
「別れても友だちだから明日会うの」
“We’re meeting tomorrow because we’re still friends, even though we broke up.”
OR
“We’re still friends, even though we broke up, and that’s why we’re still meeting tomorrow”
(clunkier English translation imo, but it mirrors the structure in Japanese a bit more. Many people prefer to think of (だ)から as a “that’s why” or “therefore” because of this i think)
Just remember that if you want a sentence using (だ)から to make sense on its own, you must see something following the (だ)から or preceeding it. If you don’t see anything there then you must to look to the context to provide it for you.
In this case, since the context was already established in the previous sentence, the speaker didn’t need to reiterate, so they just dropped it. Similar thing happens in the English translations I slapped together too.