Where does the "continue" part come from?

Japanese
#1

I understood the sentence “アメリカはこれからもウクライナを助けると言いました。” as " He said America will also support Ukraine from this point on", which makes little sense because America has already been supporting Ukraine for a long time.

DeepL and ChatGPT both translate the above sentence as "He said that the U.S. would continue to help Ukraine. ", which makes more sense considering the facts but I don’t understand where/how the original Japanese sentence implies the “continue” part.

If これからも also translates to “to continue”, then how can I differentiate it from the literal meaning “from now on (as well)”?

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#2

Here goes my 50 cent, on the matter: I guess in this case depends on the context. In this particular example we know for a fact that USA has been supporting Ukraine since the beginning and here this sentence implies that the fact (the support) will continue from the moment, the person said the sentence.

If the statement was said in the beginning of the conflict, we could then imply that “from that moment onward, USA is going to support…”

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#3

if it was just これから then that would be literally “from now” which implies it’s just starting, but since it’s これからも you could say it’s literally “from now also” which implies that it was already happening and will continue “we were already doing it, and we will also be doing it from now”

for example, これからも、よろしくお願いします

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#4

It helps me to think of も as the “even” particle, as that seems to cover all its use cases that I have learned so far.
私はスマホがある. かれもスマホがある. I have a smart phone. He even has a smart phone (he has one too).
行ってもいい. Even going is fine.
アメリカはこれからもウクライナを助けると言いました. “In regards to America, even after this, they will aid Ukraine,” they said. There is an implication with this translation that America was already supporting Ukraine before this point as well.

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#5

That makes sense to me. Still, I’m also curious as to the OP’s additional (implied?) question:

How would one express “from now on (as well)” in Japanese, perhaps the context being that several people (or countries in this specific context) have expressed support “from now on,” and the speaker wants to express that they will support “from now on, as well”, rather than “even after this,” (implying they were already supporting)?

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#6

アメリカもこれからウクライナを助けると言いました

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#7

I was said that America will also help Ukraine.

#8

Ahhh, interesting! Thanks. Makes sense.

#9

As it has been mentioned by others in the thread, the も (also) gives これから(from now on) the nuance that ‘America has been supporting Ukraine, and will also continue to support Ukraine’ because the も implies that America has been supporting Ukraine and would continue to do so in the future.

These examples might help you understand a little better.

これから - From now. アメリカはこれからウクライナを助けると言いました。‘He said America will start supporting Ukraine from this point on.’

これからも - From now (as well as the future). アメリカはこれからもウクライナを助けると言いました。‘He said that America would continue to support Ukraine.’

これからは - In the future これからはアメリカもウクライナを助けると言いました。‘He said that (starting now) in the future, America will also support Ukraine.’

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