Why is から and けど used just about everywhere?


I just saw this sentence in [this
question](https://japanese.stackexchange.com/questions/40470/how-to-express-
two-of-the-same-object-but-different-colors):

> 白と青の皿を洗って。赤いのはいいから。
>
> Wash white and blue plates. Forget red ones.

I don't really understand why is から here. As far as I know, から is used to show
a reason or to say "from XX". However, the translation doesn't have any of the
meanings I listed.

If から here marks that 赤いのはいい is a reason for washing the white and blue
plates, does that mean if the red plates are "よくない", the listener doesn't need
to wash the blue and white plates? That makes little sense to me.

In other words, if I remove the から, the sentence still carries the same
meaning, right? But that raises another question, can I just add から to
whatever sentence I want and its meaning won't change? Surely not, right?

I also see a lot of sentences that ends in けど. けど usually means "but" and it
shows a contradiction. But sometimes I see it attached to random sentences in
anime. And according to the translations, there isn't a contradiction. So can
I attach けど as well to any sentence and its meaning won't change?




In your example sentence, we have a case where English is more _context_
dependent than Japanese. We usually see it the other way around such as in a
sentence like

> りんごをたべた。

The reader fills in the "who" of the matter: whether it's "I" or "you" or
someone else.

But, in a situation like:

> Wash the white and blue dishes. The red ones are fine.

both languages are leaving out the part which says,

> You don't have to wash the red dishes.

Some people will parse the following

> 白と青の皿を洗って。赤いのはいいから。

as

> Wash the white and blue dish. Because the red one's a fine, [you don't have
> to wash them.]

But for me, that doesn't help you to see why the Japanese insists on putting
から there. It doesn't help you understand when you yourself should be adding
such a から at the end of your sentence. The above snippet just provides a way
for seeing how to make sense of the sentence after the fact of hearing. In a
way it misrepresents Japanese as omitting something when, in fact, in English
exactly the same thing is being omitted. In this case, it's English that's
being more context dependent here than Japanese because English is not
announcing, as the Japanese is, that an explanation has just been provided.

Just about any time something functions as an explanation in Japanese, it will
be followed by から or の. To my way of seeing, it's better to view the dialogue
as having a different portion omitted.

> Wash the white and blue dishes. [Why only the white and blue dishes?
> Because] the red one's are fine.

In this case, you can clearly see how it's English that is omitting something:
the "because".

This approach doesn't work for every such instance of a trailing から or の. For
example, if someone is pestering you to do something and you're getting tired
of being pestered, the following would work fine in Japanese...

> もういいんだよ

It's a bit more idiomatic and such expressions are easy to pick up on a case
by case basis.

But for the sort of examples I'm referring to, find some [Ted
talks](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gBumdOWWMhY) in Japanese. You'll hear
plenty of からです and んです. The speaker's providing an explanation for what
they've just said in a manner where in English we'd just have the blunt
sentence and leave it to the listener to gather that it's an explanation.




In your example sentence, we have a case where English is more _context_
dependent than Japanese. We usually see it the other way around such as in a
sentence like

> りんごをたべた。

The reader fills in the "who" of the matter: whether it's "I" or "you" or
someone else.

But, in a situation like:

> Wash the white and blue dishes. The red ones are fine.

both languages are leaving out the part which says,

> You don't have to wash the red dishes.

Some people will parse the following

> 白と青の皿を洗って。赤いのはいいから。

as

> Wash the white and blue dish. Because the red one's a fine, [you don't have
> to wash them.]

But for me, that doesn't help you to see why the Japanese insists on putting
から there. It doesn't help you understand when you yourself should be adding
such a から at the end of your sentence. The above snippet just provides a way
for seeing how to make sense of the sentence after the fact of hearing. In a
way it misrepresents Japanese as omitting something when, in fact, in English
exactly the same thing is being omitted. In this case, it's English that's
being more context dependent here than Japanese because English is not
announcing, as the Japanese is, that an explanation has just been provided.

Just about any time something functions as an explanation in Japanese, it will
be followed by から or の. To my way of seeing, it's better to view the dialogue
as having a different portion omitted.

> Wash the white and blue dishes. [Why only the white and blue dishes?
> Because] the red one's are fine.

In this case, you can clearly see how it's English that is omitting something:
the "because".

This approach doesn't work for every such instance of a trailing から or の. For
example, if someone is pestering you to do something and you're getting tired
of being pestered, the following would work fine in Japanese...

> もういいんだよ

It's a bit more idiomatic and such expressions are easy to pick up on a case
by case basis.

But for the sort of examples I'm referring to, find some [Ted
talks](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gBumdOWWMhY) in Japanese. You'll hear
plenty of からです and んです. The speaker's providing an explanation for what
they've just said in a manner where in English we'd just have the blunt
sentence and leave it to the listener to gather that it's an explanation.

