14017
Is there a common way to express the reason for something _after_ stating what
the something is? All the ways I can think of explaining situations involve
putting it before. I.e. ～から～です. I was hoping to say something along the lines
of "I had this thought because ~".
CC BY-SA 3.0
2014-01-03T09:42:29.120
14015
2014-01-04T00:54:33.113
question
grammar
Saying "I did X because of Y"
There are many ways to do that. I will only introduce the patterns most often
used by us native speakers. Note that to do this in Japanese, it will
basically take two separate sentences. In informal writing, however, one could
get away with combining the two into one by replacing the period after the
first sentence with a comma.

1) 「A sentence. なぜなら～～～からです。」

2）「A sentence. ～～～からです。」

3) 「A sentence. というのは～～～からです。」

4) 「A sentence. ～～～という理由からです。」

To express "I had this thought because ~~.", you could say:

「XXXと思いました。（なぜなら/というのは）～～からです。」or

「XXXと思いました。 ～～という理由からです。」
CC BY-SA 3.0
2014-01-03T11:20:46.750
14017
2014-01-03T11:20:46.750
14015
answer
Yes, there is:

> X のは Y からです。

So your specific example could be naturally expressed as:

> そう思ったのは～からです。
CC BY-SA 3.0
2014-01-04T00:54:33.113
14031
2014-01-04T00:54:33.113
1073
14015
answer