Can Someone Explain なぜなら?

I keep hearing and seeing なぜなら, and I’m having a terrible time understanding the grammar for it. Sometimes there’s a から in there somewhere? I don’t know. I know it’s a way of saying “because,” but I don’t know how to use it. Is it like N3 level grammar or something? (I’m currently on N4 grammar) Please and thank you!

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なぜ means “why”. なら is a conditional. So it’s like saying “if you ask why”. More loosely, なぜなら (here’s the reason) → “if you want to know, (here’s the reason)”.

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imabi says about なら:

なら may show advice . It can show things that would be realistic if something were to ever be the case. なら is called the contextual conditional because it is equivalent to " if you are talking about…, then… ".

which fits the “because” meaning pretty well: “If you’re talking about なぜ (=why) then… “

Edit: Dang, leebo’d by seanblue :slight_smile:

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I think you may be thinking of なぜかというと. It pretty much means the same thing as なぜなら.

You start a sentence with these clauses and the sentence will be providing an explanation of a point you made in a previous sentence.

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