草灯(そうび)は清明(せいめい)の友達(ともだち)だから
Soubi wa Seimei no tomodachi dakara
The important word here to listen for is “tomodachi.” It means “friend,” and is probably a word you can expect to hear reasonably often in both anime and “real life.”
Soubi and Seimei are just names of certain characters. But you should learn from this example how a sentence of the form “A wa B no X” works. “A wa B no X” = “A is the X of B.” Another example: “kore wa boku no enpitsu” (This is my pencil) or “sore wa sekai no hate” (That is the end of the world).
“dakara” just means “so…” or “because of…”
Listen to Ritsuka from Loveless say this phrase!
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
wa = topic particle
no = possessive particle
tomodachi = friend
dakara = so/because