Any explanation for this?

Question

"Nada, que me voy a casa de mi amiga Esther."

First, what does "que me voy" mean? Why not "me voy" only? How does "que" affect the sentence?

and, should I take the first word "Nada" as "Well," as a presupposition?

Answer 1

Que by itself can also denote cause and be very similar in meaning to 'porque' / because.

Depending on context, as it sounds like an answer to question, it could say:

Nothing because I'm going to my friend Ester's house.

If your Spanish is up to it RAE covers all uses here and this one is 2.5.

Answer 2

Need a little more context, but "Nada" does not mean "well". "Well" would be spoken as "Pues" or "Bueno".

"Que" in your sentence could mean that the speaker is repeating himself. Such as if the speaker just told the listener that he's going to his friend Esther's house and the listener wasn't listening and said "What did you say?". Then the speaker could repeat and say, "Nada, que my voy a la casa de mi amiga Esther." The implied word that may not be spoken here is "dije" - "Nada (nothing), (dije) que me voy a la casa de mi amiga Esther."

The word "que" can be bandied about quite frequently in Spanish, sometimes with very little meaning.