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アニメが日本語に興味を持ったきっかけというのもあったし、普通にアニメも好きだったんです。

I don't understand how the part "アニメが日本語に興味を持った" can be a modifier for the noun きっかけ if I'm talking about myself. The way I would go about translating it is probably "a きっかけ where/in which etc. the anime was interested in Japanese" which is a little funny. There's definitely much more I'm missing though.

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The relative clause that modifies きっかけ is 日本語に興味を持った excluding アニメが. And the subject of this 持った is not アニメ but 私 (which is implied; of course an anime doesn't have an interest in something). アニメ(が) is the subject of きっかけだ.

アニメが[(私が)日本語に興味を持った→]きっかけだ。

(literally) Anime is the trigger [←with which I got an interest in Japanese].

→ Anime is what got me interested in Japanese.

This is something you eventually need to get intuitively. Note that many English sentences would look equally ambiguous if you don't have the context and the knowledge of which word is used with which word. Please read my previous answer here, too. If you are feeling brave, take a look at questions tagged with .

In case you've missed it, you can read how this 普通に works here.

(～というの)もある is a way of giving multiple reasons. というの nominalizes the preceding clause, and もある says such a thing/situation exists. A very literal translation is "a fact/situation that ～ also exists".

  • 時間がないというのもあるし、お金がないというのもある。
    (It's not only because) I don't have time, but (also because) I don't have money, either.
  • それも確かにありますが、一番の理由は彼女が努力したことです。
    That's indeed one reason, but the main reason is that she made the effort.

アニメが日本語に興味を持ったきっかけというのもあったし、普通にアニメも好きだったんです。

(For one reason,) anime was what got me interested in Japanese, and (for another) I simply liked anime.

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  • Yes, exactly that's the way I tried looking at it as well, but how can I tell whether a ga marked subject (in this case anime) is a part of a reative clause modifying a noun or whether it is not and there is another one implied? Is it just naturaly inferred by the listener, since otherwise the sentence would be nonsenical? Also, could you please elaborate on the というのも construction? Does it just create an emphasis? Then there is あった which says that the の saying the content inside of the quote existed. Is there a specific reason for why there can't be the past "だった "copula? @naruto
    – 美しい孤独
    Commented Nov 24, 2021 at 1:48
  • @therefore Please see the edit.
    – naruto
    Commented Nov 24, 2021 at 2:10
  • Thank you very much! I see you are a native Japanese speaker, so no wonder your explanations are so good! Japanese is my second foreign language that I have been learning, first is English and I have encountered many ambiguous English sentences as well, but since I am a native speaker of a language closer to English than Japanese, I have had much easier time understanding English, also I have been learning English for around 5 years now. I will make sure to check out the stuff you linked. @naruto
    – 美しい孤独
    Commented Nov 24, 2021 at 2:25

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