I am familiar with the sentence structure "因为。。。所以。。。," but what is the correct way to say "I am [doing something] because [reason]"?
For example, "I am asking this question because I am clueless."
Does "因为。。。所以。。。" still apply in this case?
asked Dec 17, 2011 at 14:27
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Not related to your question, but it might be a good idea to not use Chinese fullstops for your ellipsis. Have a look at the Chinese Wikipedia article for ellipsis, which describes methods to type out the ellipsis using various IMEs– Yi Jiang 易江Dec 17, 2011 at 16:47
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@YiJiang易江: It's difficult for me to understand, but I have a Croatian layout, with SCIM on Linux, they probably haven't covered that.. I've seen only SHIFT+6 there, for me that only gives an ampersand.– dr Hannibal LecterDec 17, 2011 at 17:07
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To keep the Chinese translation in the same order as the English equivalent, you could say "之所以我现在正在做.. 是因为..."– FlakeDec 17, 2011 at 18:40
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@Flake: Great, please add an it as an alternative in the answers, it's more prominent and you'll get some upvotes ;) My grammar book says 之 is optional, is that correct?– dr Hannibal LecterDec 17, 2011 at 19:10
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@drHannibalLecter Done that. Added few more things.– FlakeDec 17, 2011 at 19:48
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3 Answers
To answer the question:
English phrase
"I am [doing something] because [reason]"
has Chines equivalent, which preserves the same sentence order, as:
"之所以我现在正在做.. 是因为..."
Though, I am not sure if 所以我在做.. 是因为 is wrong, the 之 in this sentence is not really optional, i.e. saying 之所以我在做.. 是因为 is much more natural than 所以我在做.. 是因为, at least to me.
But normally, I would say
"我现在正在做.. 是因为..."
Or, to add blaming emotion into the sentence:
"我现在正在做.. 还不是因为..."
E.g.
"我现在正在写报告, 还不是因为你忘了提前告诉我."
=
"I am still writing the report, because you forgot to tell me earlier!"
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I'm a bit confused about the 还不是 part, how does it translate to English? Dec 17, 2011 at 20:55
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Wow, just realized this part is really not that easy to explain in English. I will post a question for this when I have the time. ;) For now, FYI, this part is oral Chinese, somewhat not that standard, but as I know, quite common and nature.– FlakeDec 17, 2011 at 23:50
I think “因为。。。所以。。。” still applies in this case. Or you could say “我。。。是因为。。。”
For example:
我吃蛋糕是因为我饿了。= I am eating the cake because I am hungry.
Wǒ chī dàn gāo shì yīn wèi wǒ è le
As long as there is a cause and effect logic in the sentence, "因为...所以..." applies. Therefore, the below situations all mean "因为...所以..."
A because B
B, therefore/hence/so, A
B causes/contributes to/leads to A
etc...
