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I want to make sure that I understand the basic usage of　から.

If I say:　まどをしめます。さむいですから。　 Would this sound natural or stilted to native speakers?

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As far as I can tell, yes. I'm reading your second sentence as "(implied subject) Because it was cold." – Jamie Taylor Jun 8 '12 at 7:38
Although I disagree with downvoting new users' questions without giving an explanation, I'd guess that this one was downvoted for being too localised because it's about a specific sentence and it doesn't fully describe the background of the problem. Still, it would have been much more useful to explain this and help you improve it rather than downvote-and-run = =. Anyway, I've upvoted so you now have >20 rep which will allow you to ask smaller, more localised questions like this on chat if you prefer :) – ジョン Jun 8 '12 at 7:48
@Jamie Taylor: Thanks! – Cristina Jun 8 '12 at 7:50
@ジョン: Thanks a lot :) I can't see how one could have asked this question in a more general way, though...the context is simply trying to understand whether a pattern of usage sounds ok to natives. – Cristina Jun 8 '12 at 7:55
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@cristina, if you asked for instance if から used at the end of a sentence to connect meaning to the previous sentence is correct (or colloquially acceptable), and maybe even provided another example, then readers of the question would see how it pertains to a wider usage of から, rather than just one instance. Making the question more about this overall grammatical usage of から, rather than what it does in this specific sentence for instance would make a better question. thank you~ – yadokari Jun 8 '12 at 14:13
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1 Answer

up vote 6 down vote accepted

It is perfectly grammatical, and is used regularly, but it is not in the most natural word order. から is a conjunct that heads an adverbial clause, and adverbials appear to the left of the verb phrase in Japanese. The most natural order is

寒{さむ}い(です)から窓{まど}を閉{し}めます。

The one you have splits this into two sentences, and the latter involves inversion.

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Aha, thank you! This is exactly the kind of insight I was looking for. – Cristina Jun 11 '12 at 8:38

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