〜なら: Conditionals 4

Introduction

Welcome to... drum roll 🥁... your final* conditional marker lesson!!! Wahoo!!! I bet you're simply ecstatic. I honestly can't believe we've come this far already. You know ば, you know と, you know たら, now all that's left is that super-top secret redacted grammar boss that we hinted at in Apprentice (N4) lesson #54.

(*Well, until we compare and contrast them at least. Oh, and then we still have to introduce もし. OH, and—uhh, actually, I'll tell you about the rest later, haha.)

And finally, なら

Structure

• 

  casual form

  AKA plain form (e.g. 食べる, 食べた, おいしい)

  verb/い-adjectiveなら

• 

  Noun/な-adjectiveなら

  Example:
  → 食たべるなら速はやく食たべて。
  "If you're going to eat, do it quickly.”

So what is なら? Well, it's similar to たら in that it can attach to verbs, adjectives, and nouns, but other than that, なら is quite unique. It can be used in both written and spoken language, but なら can be a bit picky and there are many situations in which なら simply refuses to cooperate. This means that we, unfortunately, have more rules to memorize. So let's get started!