In

> 自信があれば半ば成功したも同然だ。
>
> Confidence is half the battle. (Idiomatic translation)

I'm having trouble getting to the idiomatic translation.

It seems like a good literal translation of the clause before も is:

> 自信があれば半ば成功した
>
> If one has self-confidence, one does success halfly.

  1. What role is も playing? Translating it as "too" or "also" seems a bit awkward to me (i.e. "if one has self-confidence, one does success halfly _too_ " is a bit weird?).

  2. What is the 同然だ doing at the end? Does it mean something like: "it is natural", so that the overall sentence becomes: "it is natural that if one has self-confidence, one does success halfly"?
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2023-01-16T03:24:15.360
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question
translation
Understanding 「自信があれば半ば成功したも同然だ。」
～も同然だ should be [learned as a set phrase](https://jlptsensei.com/learn-
japanese-grammar/%E3%82%82%E5%90%8C%E7%84%B6%E3%81%A0-mo-douzen-da-meaning/),
but to break down,

  * This も is yet another example of [exclamatory-も](https://japanese.stackexchange.com/questions/linked/32886). Here it's close to "even".
  * 同然 is a noun (no-adjective) meaning "virtually/effectively the same".

So 半ば成功したも同然だ means (事実上)半ば成功したのと同じだ, or "(It's even) virtually the same as
having half-succeeded."

In this pattern, a nominalizer is usually not present after the verb because
of [this](https://japanese.stackexchange.com/a/64669/5010), but you may
occasionally see an explicit の (e.g., 成功したのも同然だ).
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answer