ばよかった - Grammar Discussion

English translation:
should have, it would have been better if

Structure:
Verb[ ]+ よかった(のに)

Explanation:
[Aばよかった, used when speaker/writer regrets not doing A]

View on Bunpro

I forget which all ones ya’ll know are duplicates, but jic:

https://bunpro.jp/grammar_points/163
https://bunpro.jp/grammar_points/208

They have different related grammar, just to note. As well as the のに addition on the second.

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I see no distinctions here, @mrnoone why is this separated?

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It’s an accident, there are a couple grammar points on here with dupes.

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You guys are probably already aware, but just in case: this grammar point currently only has three example sentences.

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Echoing @eefara, @mrnoone, I do find it odd that this grammar point only has three example sentences, in comparison to the others, which have like eight or something.

Was this intentional?

For some reason this grammar point is split in two. They link to the same thread but this thread links back to the one with more than three…

https://bunpro.jp/grammar_points/163
https://bunpro.jp/grammar_points/208

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It’s odd how the resources listed are slightly different…


For now, I’ve simply marked the duplicate one as burned and the other one is progressing nicely to burned.

Bump; I am also confused why this has two grammar points with different explanations, example sentences, resources, etc.

I asked and got this answer:

Pushindawood: Hey! Thank you for your report! There are three duplicate grammar points that we are aware of. Unfortunately, we cannot simply remove them as many users have created content associated with both versions (notes and self-study questions). Once we have found the best way to merge the duplicates, while preserving user-generated content and integrating the additional sentences into everyone’s reviews, we will do that. Thank you for your patience as we figure out how to go about this. Cheers!

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Why doesn’t this work with ~たら?

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I hope this gets fixed, I thought my memory was failing when as I’d thought I’d studied it already, makes sense now.

Similar question.

I got the following message from bunpro: “Nice guess! たら works the same way and means pretty much the same thing, however Bunpro is looking for another conditional.”

So according to this message it seems that たらよかった does exists. Moreover, you can find exemples sentences on tatoeba and weblio:

https://tatoeba.org/eng/sentences/show/2718658
https://tatoeba.org/eng/sentences/show/94860

But there is no mention of たらよかった anywhere on bunpro. There is no sentence with たらよかった on this grammar point, it is not an accepted alternative answer, it’s nowhere in the notes and there is no separate grammar point for たらよかった.

Actually I wouldn’t knew it even existed if I didn’t do that mistake. Could it be something to add to the list of missing grammar point?

Additional question: if it is possible with Vば and たら can you do the same with と and なら?

I was wondering if ~なければよかった would mean “I wish I hadn’t/ I shouldn’t have”?

There’s no mention of it in the explanation and there are no examples using the negative. I couldn’t find a separate grammar point either. I found that odd since they have an explanation for “ないほうがいい” and "なくて/ないで ・よかった. "

Is this a thing or is there a different way to say “I shouldn’t have”?

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@albcasahu

Hey and sorry for the very slow answer!
Yes, なければよかった is a thing and is used! It can be contracted to なきゃよかった in casual speech.

I will add information about this to the grammar point.

Example sentence:
給料全部を漫画フィギュアに使わなければよかったなぁ。
I wish I had not spend my entire salary on the manga figurines…

Cheers :bowing_man:

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Why does the “寝ないで” in “寝ないで、日本語を勉強すればよかった。” mean “rather than sleep”? Is that the “but (contrast)” from https://bunpro.jp/grammar_points/verbて-b?

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One of the example sentences for this version of the grammar point is "私のパスコンを持ってくればよかった。” For some reason the listed translation is “You should have brought my computer along.” I don’t understand where the implication of someone else bringing something is coming from and not the person themselves regretting they didn’t bring the computer.

The implication is coming from the subsidiary verb くれる.
持つ to bring
持ってくれる to bring for me
持ってくれば if you bring for me

Also there is typo パスコン → パソコン

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Oh, duh. I guess I misread that as "来る“。Thank you.

edit: I see why now: shouldn’t the hiragana there be ”くれる”?