346 Because

Eleanor Olcott is now a language student in Taipei, studying Chinese! She used to be able to speak Japanese when she was young, but lost most of the language ability when she moved to the UK. She describes having a “language-shaped hole” in her heart, which she decided to fill by going to Taipei to study Mandarin Chinese! ShaoLan teaches her the word for “because” in Chinese and they use it in different circumstances to demonstrate how it can be used, both by itself and as a specific grammar structure alongside the Chinese for “therefore.”

The way to say “because” in Chinese is 因為/因为, where the first character 因 means “reason” or “cause” and the second character 為/为 means “to serve.” Together, it simply means “because” 因為/因为.