On page…146? (or there abouts), the first panel has Fujimiya saying to the two girls from the classroom, 「私にだって友達いるんだから！」 I had the gist of what she’s saying here, but when I read it, I marked it as something I wanted to break down to ensure I understand in detail.
友達いるん is simple enough for me. 友達 + いる + explanatory の. “Have friends [explanation].” It’s the rest of it that I needed to review.
I’m familiar with から as expressing a reason or cause When it’s in the middle of a sentence, it’s easy. It’s when it’s at the end of the sentence where I sometimes struggle, as I’m getting the reason for something, but not the something.
It’s like if there’s a sentence, “I’m reading manga because I want to improve my Japanese,” but all you’re given is, “Because I want to improve my Japanese.” We get the reason why, but not the what. (This comes out odd in English because while we get the first half of the sentence in Japanese, translated into English it’d typically be located as the second half.)
Looking at the prior pages (going 12 pages back!), the girls were talking about Fujimiya, saying how 「気持ち悪い」 it was that Fujimiya was reading her notebook with a smile on her face (among other things). I take it this から is giving the reason for her acting the way the girls were talking about. “I was smiling as I read my notebook (among other things), because I have friends.”
Hopefully I’ll become more familiar and comfortable with sentences ending in から as I encounter it more.
And finally, 私にだって. When I hear だって, I think “because”. But there’s also the から at the end of this sentence which is like “because”.
According to “A Dictionary of Japanese Particles” by Sue A. Kawashima, page 15, だって “takes a special case and shows that it really is the same as other cases”. If that’s the usage here, then Fujimiya would essentially be saying “it’s because even I have friends,” meaning she has friends just like anyone else. (In “All About Particles” by Naoko Chino, だって is mentioned in passing as a casual alternative to でも.)
だって in this usage is another I hope I will by attention to as it comes up, so that I’ll recognize and understand it, rather than passing over it because I get the overall gist of a sentence.
I’m taking the に to be an indirect object marker. Does that sound right or wrong to anyone? Since I’m not writing a bit on why I’m right, you can tell I’m iffy on it.
「 私にだって友達いるんだから！」
“It’s because even I have friends!”
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