ならWere it, If, If it's the case, As for (Conditional)

Most Recent Replies (20 in total)

• 

  mrnoone

  if
  if it’s the case
  as for

  Structure

  • Verb + (の) なら
  • い-Adjective + (の) なら
  • な-Adjective + (の) なら
  • Noun + (の) なら

  なら does not attach to nouns or な-adjectives with だ

  [condition + なら + result]
  [Adding の before なら further emphasizes what comes before it]

  View on Bunpro

• 

  GregX999

  I think the hint for this question…
  

  image.png746×182 14.4 KB

  
  …is a bit confusing as のばあいは ...
• 

  mrnoone

  Hey

  I have changed the wording to “if it’s the case”

  なら is often used in reaction to someone statement, when speaker wants to give advice, or opinion.

  「熱いなぁ」(It’s hoooot)
  「熱いなら、扇風機を点けてください」
  If it’s the case that it is hot, please turn on the fan.

• 

  Ambo100

  The grammar resource for Misa links to the video for と (part 1) but perhaps it would be better to link to part 3 for なら?

• 

  Pushindawood

  @Ambo100 Much better! Thank you for letting us know so that we could update the Readings section. Cheers!

• 

  rwmleach

  Can anyone help me out with the phrase “condition in context”? I’m not really understanding what that means.

• 

  mrnoone

  Hey and welcome on the community forums

  Just think of it as condition, I have changed it on the site too.

  Cheers!

• 

  lifev1

  I study grammar on Bunpro following Genki path. In Genki (lesson 13) they explain なら as :

  A statement of the form “noun A なら predicate X” says that predicate X applies only to A and is not more generally valid.

  I’m struggling to connect this explanation with Bunpro one. Is it a completely different grammar point?

• 

  Ducklingscap

  I’m also confused by this.

• 

  zyoeru

  @lifev1 @Ducklingscap

  I don’t know if you’ll see this but here’s how I understand it (also following Genki).

  Genki is only using one of なら’s uses and that’s to answer a question counterfactually to contrast the question and provide an indirect response which isn’t rude. They explain this as:

  BunPro restate this as:

  A remains the same but B is used instead of X on BunPro.

  The Dictionary of Basic Japanese Grammar also say this about this way of using なら:

• 

  Howl_UK

  This was a great video on the differences between たら and なら.
• 

  JoaoPLF

  I’ve watched a couple of videos about たら and なら and I think I’m getting the idea of how they work, but some sentences sound confusing to me.

  また行（い）くなら、帰（かえ）って来（こ）ないでください。

  This one was in my review today. From my understanding, not coming back would happen after the person going, so I’d have to use また行ったら. Or do we use なら because it’s a request?

  田舎（いなか）に住（す）んだら 、車（くるま）が必要（ひつよう）です。

  Correct me if I’m wrong on this one, but from what I understood, 住んだら means that the person is already living in the countryside. If I say 住むな...

• 

  marlowe

  Love Miku

• 

  marlowe

  What do OK Noun and NG Noun mean? I’ve never seen those terms before.

• 

  gyroninja

  OK comes from okay and NG comes from no good.
  You can use the stuff marked as OK, but you shouldn’t use the stuff marked as NG.

• 

  marlowe

  Ah okay, so basically it’s saying that " Noun + は・が・を + なら" cannot be used?

• 

  yannick

  this was extremely helpful, thx a lot!

• 

  onekun

  From my understanding, 「なら」is more of an “if” and 「たら」is more of a “when,” is this right? I need some more explanation into the nuance.

  I haven’t learned 「もし」yet but it’s my assumption that you can append it to the start of a sentence if the if/when dichotomy is unclear. Though I’m more concerned about how 「なら」and 「たら」relate to each other by themselves, when should I use one over the other?

• 

  nekoyama

  もし can be used with hypotheticals to reinforce that nuance. Reinforcing that something is hypothetical means you’re less certain about it. For example, you’ll often see もし in expressions like “もしよかったら…” because the speaker doesn’t want to presume how the other party feels.

  ---

  If we’re comparing なら and たら only, then the biggest difference is that the sequence of events is reversed.
  In “AたらB”, event B occurs after event A. “Once/when/if A happens, then B.”
  In “AならB”, event A can occur after event B but not before it. “If A is/were/will be the case, then B”.

  I found this example on Amazon (as a sticker):
  

  飲んだら乗るな - don’t drive if you drank something
  乗るなら飲むな - if you’re going to drive, don’t drink

  From a learne...

• 

  onekun

  This reply is an excellent resource, I think I got the basic difference down, but I’ll reference it if I ever get confused. Bookmarked.

  So would you use と and ば instead? How would you construct that?

  I would ask what the nuance is with と vs ば, but it’d fit better in one of their respective threads and I could almost infinitely ask about nuance so I don’t want to kill you with grammar questions, haha.