たら
- 1If or once the condition holds (for actions, after it happens), the main clause follows.Ex. 1
- 2With a past main clause, the speaker did something and then discovered or encountered a situation.Ex. 2
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A very common, versatile conditional, especially in everyday conversation. Unlike ば and と, it combines freely with requests, intentions and suggestions in the main clause. With action verbs it places the condition first and the main clause after it, whereas なら allows the main-clause action to come before the condition. In its discovery sense it overlaps with たところ but is less formal.
Do not use たら with an action condition when the main-clause action must happen before it; use なら instead.
Note that in the discovery sense the main clause is past and describes something outside the speaker's control, not the speaker's own deliberate action.
Learners often forget だ with nouns and な-adjectives; say 雨だったら, not 雨たら.
- ばN4When a hypothetical condition leads to a natural result, ば and たら are often interchangeable. ば stresses the condition and regularity: with an action verb in the first clause, the second clause cannot take commands, requests, or volitional expressions, it generally does not mark time sequence, and it is seldom used for unexpected discoveries.
- とN5と can also list nouns or indicate the person you do something with; as a conditional, it is mainly used for inevitable connections such as regular patterns and habits, and its second clause generally cannot express volition, requests, or commands — use たら in those cases. When narrating a past discovery, the two are often interchangeable.
- ならN4なら attaches to the plain form, with nouns and な-adjective stems joining directly (e.g. 「静かなら」); it is mostly used to give advice or judgments based on a topic the listener has raised, and its second clause can occur before the first — it has no 'afterward' or 'discovery' usage. For simple hypotheses, the two are often interchangeable.
- たところN4When たら expresses discovery, it is often interchangeable with 「たところ、…」, with the following clause usually in the past tense. たところ attaches only to verbs and does not express hypothetical conditions; the related 「たところだ」 means having just finished doing something.
- たとたんN3たとたん attaches only to verbs, stresses that the two events happen almost simultaneously, mainly narrates things that have already happened, and its second clause cannot express volition or requests. When たら expresses discovery, the point is that doing the first action led to noticing an already-existing fact, without emphasizing the instant.
Compared with ば and と, たら is freer with requests and intentions in the main clause, while なら responds to a topic or assumption and lets the main-clause action come before the condition. たところ is a more formal way to express a discovery after an action, while たとたん stresses that something happened immediately after the event.
