Am I wrong in thinking that this sentence is conditional, not causal (that is , たら means ‘if…then’, while たから means ‘because’)?
Although with the second clause in the past tense, maybe this is a construction I’m not familiar with?
Although with the second clause in the past tense, maybe this is a construction I’m not familiar with?
It’s a causal and conditional.
たら can also mean when, so “when I left my room dirty, many cockroaches came out”
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Right, yeah - I remember learning the difference between たら and なら, actually, and how they can be translated as ‘when’ as well as ‘if’. Although that only covered instances where the second clause was in the future - stuff like “When it starts to rain, I’ll give you an umbrella”. I guess if the second clause is past, it can no longer be conditional because it’s already happened, so that makes it causal.
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