「so」と「so that」の違い

I've been grateful for the live translation of much of the reporting on NHK about the earthquake, tsunami, and situation at the Fukushima Number 1 nuclear power plant.

However, it's interesting for me to hear the mistakes that the interpreters make. For example, one woman said:

× Some of the damage was too great so that they couldn't restore it.
◯ Some of the damage was too great, so they couldn't repair it.

See, even trained professionals make mistakes, so you shouldn't feel so bad about your own mistakes. However, you should practice so that you make fewer mistakes.

Remember that "so" is used when explaining a reason. "So that" means "in order to"; it tells the intended result of a particular action.

● so that ～できるように (definition from Eijiro on the Web)

I am writing this blog post so that you can understand the difference between "so" and "so that".

Someone in Singapore sent these two rabbit decorations in late January so that we could decorate our apartment for the lunar new year celebration. We don't usually display holiday decorations. However, we had them so we hung them. The celebration ended back in February, so we took them down. Every year has a different animal, so we can't reuse them next year. Could I declare next year a rabbit year again so that I can hang these cute rabbits on the wall again?

For more about "so", you can see the blog posts I wrote in July of 2009. I gathered all of the links in this post so that you could access them conveniently:

http://upgradeenglish.blogspot.com/2009/07/so_22.html

Give your support to the crews at the Fukushima Number 1 power plant so that they can complete their dangerous work quickly and safely.