とは particle in a sentence

Question

The sentence:

これまでの私とは違うんです

translates to

I am not the same as before

according to the anki deck I am currently using. I can't see why it means this (maybe because I don't understand what the とは particle means in this case) no matter how i look at it. Any help would be appreciated

Answer 1

This とは is a simple combination of two independent particles. This と is a particle that marks a comparison target. This は is the topic/contrast marker. As you may know, the topic marker can directly follow から, まで, に, で, etc.

• How is と used in these sentences? (See the last half of Chocolate's answer)
• What about this combination of と and や

If you haven't learned ～と違う yet, let's memorize it as a common set phrase meaning "to differ from ～".

これまでの私 is a noun phrase meaning "my past self", "the old me". So a very literal translation of the sentence would be "As for (the comparison with) my past self, (it) differs."