I came across this sentence which means “I’ll heat up the soup now” Can anyone explain the grammar here? I thought it meant: because right now soup is hot or soup will be warm.
Apart from the warming up art someone else explained, you seem to be confused about “〜から”.
The dictionary will indeed say it means “because” but it has a far lighter sense of implication in many contexts in Japanese. It does mean “because” in the sense that it indicates that something happens because of something else, it’s just that in English “because” has a far more logical connotation than in Japanese.
You can see it in many contexts as something such as “I’ll heat up the soup right now you see.” or “I’ll eat up the soup right now after all.” Many translators would even omit it entirely because it’s so weak sounding in Japanese but I believe “you see” or “after all” are often good translations into English.
For instance:
– “座ってください。” = “Please sit down.” – “今スープを温めますから。” = ”Ill heat up the soup right now you see.”
Using “Because I’m heating up the soup right now.” would sound slightly unnatural in English. The sense of implication would be too strong. It indeed means that the other person should sit down because the speaker is heating up the soup, but using “because” simply sounds too strong in English so always translating it as “Because I’ll heat up the soup right now.” would sound unnatural. I would say it’s better in translations to omit it entirely than to use “because” but I think using something such as “you see”, “after al” or using “as” in front of the sentence is the best way.
温める is a verb not an adjective. So rather than hot or warm it’s “to heat up”.
same pattern
スープを食べる -> Eat soup
スープを温める -> heat up soup
you gotta remember を marks an object that an action is done to. if it was an adjective it would be スープが温かいです -> the soup is warm.
One last thing you might be confused about here is から. I don’t know the context of this sentence so idk if there’s more to it but sometimes it’s used while leaving out the rest of the sentence because it’s understood through context. It also doesn’t always directly mean “because”. It points out a reason, motive, cause, etc which doesn’t always directly work with because. This sentence would be kinda like “Im gonna warm up soup so…” The full sentence including context would be something like “I’m gonna warm up soup *so please eat it*”. The motive for warming up soup here is “I’m doing it for you to eat” which is obvious from context which is why it’s left out and the sentence would just become “今スープを温めますから”
>今スープを温めますから
* 「私は」- Using a default context (because we don’t know it) * 「私が」- Setting the subject to the same as the context, but leaving it unstated as it’s obvious and we don’t want to emphasize it. * 今 – now * スープを – The soup is the object being acted on. * 温めます – Polite form of 温める (to heat) * から – Because… [See this link](https://japanese.stackexchange.com/questions/58773/why-do-i-hear-%e3%81%be%e3%81%99%e3%81%8b%e3%82%89-masukara-so-often-at-the-end-of-sentences) for uses. (NB. Probably means something like – “so … {don’t start anything that means you won’t be available to eat the soup}”)
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温める is a verb that means to heat up.
[https://jisho.org/](https://jisho.org/)
Apart from the warming up art someone else explained, you seem to be confused about “〜から”.
The dictionary will indeed say it means “because” but it has a far lighter sense of implication in many contexts in Japanese. It does mean “because” in the sense that it indicates that something happens because of something else, it’s just that in English “because” has a far more logical connotation than in Japanese.
You can see it in many contexts as something such as “I’ll heat up the soup right now you see.” or “I’ll eat up the soup right now after all.” Many translators would even omit it entirely because it’s so weak sounding in Japanese but I believe “you see” or “after all” are often good translations into English.
For instance:
– “座ってください。” = “Please sit down.”
– “今スープを温めますから。” = ”Ill heat up the soup right now you see.”
Using “Because I’m heating up the soup right now.” would sound slightly unnatural in English. The sense of implication would be too strong. It indeed means that the other person should sit down because the speaker is heating up the soup, but using “because” simply sounds too strong in English so always translating it as “Because I’ll heat up the soup right now.” would sound unnatural. I would say it’s better in translations to omit it entirely than to use “because” but I think using something such as “you see”, “after al” or using “as” in front of the sentence is the best way.
温める is a verb not an adjective. So rather than hot or warm it’s “to heat up”.
same pattern
スープを食べる -> Eat soup
スープを温める -> heat up soup
you gotta remember を marks an object that an action is done to. if it was an adjective it would be スープが温かいです -> the soup is warm.
One last thing you might be confused about here is から. I don’t know the context of this sentence so idk if there’s more to it but sometimes it’s used while leaving out the rest of the sentence because it’s understood through context. It also doesn’t always directly mean “because”. It points out a reason, motive, cause, etc which doesn’t always directly work with because. This sentence would be kinda like “Im gonna warm up soup so…” The full sentence including context would be something like “I’m gonna warm up soup *so please eat it*”. The motive for warming up soup here is “I’m doing it for you to eat” which is obvious from context which is why it’s left out and the sentence would just become “今スープを温めますから”
>今スープを温めますから
* 「私は」- Using a default context (because we don’t know it)
* 「私が」- Setting the subject to the same as the context, but leaving it unstated as it’s obvious and we don’t want to emphasize it.
* 今 – now
* スープを – The soup is the object being acted on.
* 温めます – Polite form of 温める (to heat)
* から – Because… [See this link](https://japanese.stackexchange.com/questions/58773/why-do-i-hear-%e3%81%be%e3%81%99%e3%81%8b%e3%82%89-masukara-so-often-at-the-end-of-sentences) for uses. (NB. Probably means something like – “so … {don’t start anything that means you won’t be available to eat the soup}”)
Thank you everyone. I understood it now. 👍🏻