English translation:
if it were the case that
assuming that…
Structure:
Verb + としたら/とすれば/とすると
いadj + としたら/とすれば/とすると
なadj + (だ) + としたら/とすれば/とすると
Noun + (だ) + としたら/とすれば/とすると
Explanation:
[if…assume that・hypothetical]
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What does the とすると (and other する forms) add to the meaning versus potential forms of verbs or だったら for nouns?
From Tobira: もしタイムマシーンがあるとしたら、… vs もしタイムマシーンがあれば
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Why is the past used in「もし勉強しなかったとしたら、明日のテストは悲惨なことになるかなぁ？」?
I assumed it was something like “Assuming you didn’t study (up until now), …”, but the translation is “If I don’t study, I wonder if it would mean that tomorrow’s test would be a disaster?”, which doesn’t seem to reflect the past.
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It’s because the hypothetical is talking about the future where you didn’t study. The hypothetical place in time is after the fact, hence why it’s in past.
Hope this helps!
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留学に行くとすると、論文が必要。
Any reason why となると can’t work here? Some sources even seem to cover them as (roughly) the same thing.
.〜としたら・とすれば・とすると・となったら・となれば・となると | ちよさんぽ
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Because it’s you who’s deciding to go to school, it’s not being decided against your will or anything like that!
The sentence
「今日中に結論が出ない____、明日の発表に間に合いませんよ」
accepts とすれば but not ようでは.
ようでは is only for negative outcomes and “you won’t make it in time for tomorrow’s presentation” in the second half of that sentence certainly seems like a negative outcome. If anyone could shed some light on why these two grammar points are different in this specific case or just in general, I would be grateful 
よろしくね～.
I’m trying to learn the nuance distinctions between various forms of hypotheticals, and this grammar point touches precisely on a few forms of this topic. However, there seems to be some kind of confusion in the text of the grammar point. It currently says:
The text beneath the form-examples seems to indicate that the forms all basically mean the same thing, but with some nuance perhaps. They all are supposed to basically mean “assuming that A is true, then (possibly?) B is true”. I’ll call this ‘form’ as “If A then B”, or more academically as “A implies B”, or symbolically by “A⇒B”.
[Edited to add: See note below about the possibility that “A⇒B” is not, in fact, the right meaning.]
The problem I’m having here is that the English translations of these forms are not logically/hypothetically equivalent (with just differences in nuance). They are actually quite different things! Let’s take a look:
First off, this English translation needs either slight rewording, or perhaps some punctuation. It could mean, “When (A) is the result, (B)” which means something different from “When (A), is the result (B)?” So, first of all, I’m not even sure what the sentence is supposed to mean.
But I have a feeling that the problem isn’t just missing punctuation. It feels more like what was intended was something like, “When (A), the result is (B),” or similarly “When (A) is [true,] the result [is] (B).” On the other hand, if that was the intention, then it sounds very ‘definite’. I was under the impression (could be wrong!) that ~たら is more ‘indefinite’ than that.
On the other hand, perhaps the intention was more like, “When (A) is the result, [then] (B).” The problem here would be that A is being called a ‘result’, which seems confusing.
I guess the ‘solution here’ would be to use more words (here in this thread) to try to make the nuance very clear, and then try to come up with a shorter, succinct phrasing that could be used in the grammar point’s About section.
For an example, which may not be accurate as to nuance, but at least it’s clear what the nuance is, maybe it’s supposed to mean something like: “If we were to imagine a scenario where A was true, then it would be at least logically possible that B might also be true; whereas in an alternative scenario where A was not true, then B would absolutely not even be remotely possible.”
In which case, we might shorten that wordy version down to something like: “Only in the case of A is B even possible.”
So, I guess I’m asking folks here, and hopefully some @admin (or is it @admins ?), to spell out, with more words, what “(A) としたら (B)” actually means in English. 
Next!
Again, this one refers to A as a ‘result’. I have a feeling that what is intended is more like, “If the [case] is (A), [then] (B) [is also the case].” But perhaps there’s some sort of temporal nuance that I’m missing where A actually is a ‘result’ rather than more of a ‘cause’ (or a ‘causal case’, to invent some terminology).
For example, a situation where my suggestion, where A is a ‘causal case’: “If it is the case that ‹I pushed the button›, then it will be the case that ‹the bomb will explode›.” Here, it matches the logical meaning of “A⇒B”, but A is a ‘cause’, not a ‘result’. The result would be B!
On the other hand, it can also make ‘cause/effect’ sense to have A being an actual ‘result’, and yet still match the “A⇒B” logical meaning. For example, “If ‹I (legitimately) won the lottery!› is the result, then ‹I (legitimately) came into ownership of a winning ticket› must have happened”.
The logical meaning of “A⇒B” is the same in both cases, but the cause/effect relationship is different (actually, the opposite!) in each case.
Maybe neither of these is actually what “(A) とすれば (B)” is supposed to mean. But in any case, we definitely need a clearer spelling-out of what it is supposed to mean. And then we can figure out how to shorten that into something succinct for the grammar point’s About section.
Lastly!
This one is the most clearly stated version. At least it’s clear that it definitely fits the “A⇒B” logical meaning. And also that A is certainly the cause. I think I don’t have much to complain, or even nit-pick, about this one.
I guess the only thing is: how does it compare to the other two? But since the other two are currently quite ambiguous, I think they need to be addressed clearly before trying to tweak (if even necessary) this last one.
So, anyone have suggestions about how to differentiate these different forms in English?
[Also, @Asher , which (if any) of the ‘@’ tags should be used (on into the future) to summon content-admins for this kind of question/discussion?]
[Edited to add:
In some cases, a natural-language statement of the form “If A then B” is not actually equivalent to the logical form “A⇒B”. Instead, it might mean (among other possibilities) “If A is found to be actually true, then B is more likely to be true as well (but is not necessarily guaranteed to be so).”
An example might be: “If it keeps getting cloudier and cloudier like this, then it will rain.” In fact, it might continue to get cloudy and not actually rain. But getting cloudy does generally mean that the probability of rain tends to increase.]
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Good questions and observations. I believe that the primary cause of confusion here is there being a disconnect between how we (at Bunpro) want to teach と, and the way it is taught in a broader sense.
と is a particle that compartmentalizes things, and tells the reader/listener that all the information about (A) is complete, which is why we call it a result/resultant emphasizer. This is in contrast to に, which is a target emphasizer.
Here’s a few examples. Note this is not typically how textbooks teach と, so you’re absolutely welcome to agree or disagree.
と as quotation - The previous info is something grouped as a whole, with nothing omitted.
と as if - The previous info is complete, leaving no room for ‘maybe’.
と as determiner (like となる) - Something will become (A), it cannot be changed.
として - The thing about (A) is innate, again it cannot be changed.
In all cases, と says (A) is the way it is. It’s the result. Anything after that will obey the logic of (A) first and foremost.
Imagine と being like MC Hammer saying ‘you can’t touch this’. Meaning that it’s the controlling factor of the sentence and anything subsequent, and nothing can alter it externally without breaking the logic.
You see this a lot in books where joint particles like へと etc show that an action is being done with such resolve that you may as well already consider it done/being a result.
As for したら, you’re absolutely right about the missing comma before (B) in the first structure. I’ll change that, as that is the desired nuance.
Consider the structures this way. The first と shows that (A) is resultant. Following, the subsequent hypothetical clause discusses what will come next. The reason that we say it as ‘assuming that …’ in English is because that’s how we convey the feeling ‘Ok, I will accept (A) as a fact for the purpose of discussing what can happen from that’.
For the last question, feel free to ping any of the staff directly, depending on what kind of answer you want 
. My recommendation would be - @Fuga or @Chihiro for the native speaker opinions, @Asher for the ‘I spent way too much time thinking about this opinions’, and @Keaka for the ‘short and to the point’ opinions 
.
Hope this actually made sense and doesn’t sound like rambling 
.
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Thank you! 
It’s a great starting point for me to begin digesting the situation. I will reply more completely when I have the time to think it through.
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I’m gonna change this translation. Sorry for the super late reply, I noticed this post in passing! With the sentence もし勉強しなかった としたら、明日のテストは悲惨なことになるかなぁ？, it’s expressing that the person did actually study, but they are wondering what would happen if they hadn’t. A much better translation is ‘If I hadn’t studied, I wonder if tomorrow’s test would have been a disaster’. Hope this helps!
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“… would have been a disaster?” ? ‘Would have been’ usually means something happening in the past. It it’s tomorrow’s test, it hasn’t happened yet. Maybe “… would be a disaster?”
As in, ‘If I hadn’t studied, I wonder if tomorrow’s test would de a disaster?’
Or, possibly, “If I hadn’t studied, tomorrow’s test would be a disaster!”, more like a “Whew! That was a close call! Glad I studied, cuz now I realize I knew nothing!”
[Now that I think of it, “If I hadn’t studied, tomorrow’s test would have been be a disaster!” also sounds natural… 
]
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Depends on how determined the speaker is about the result that they’re imagining. Japanese, like English, puts the future in the past quite a lot.
If Obama hadn’t won the election, I wonder if John McCain would have given the presidential address tomorrow.
If we didn’t live in Nepal, I wonder if we would have gotten married on the beach next month.
It’s just the speaker projecting themselves onto a future that they’ve already determined isn’t possible for whatever reason.
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Okay, I think that makes sense now 
… as I’m reading it today. … But … I wonder if it would still have made sense, even if I had read it tomorrow? Hmm… I think it would have!
Well, I guess I will have certainly found out by the day after tomorrow!
But… by that point … it would have already have made sense yesterday … in the past … in the future!?!
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TLDR: Language is weird
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What has helped me the most with learning Japanese is transcending our dimension and standing above the concepts of space and time.
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Hmmm, or is it “will have”, for the past in the future??? Will we ever have figured this out, at some point, especially if we hadn’t have had this current conversation, presently, in the past of the future!? Probably we will have not have had! Won’t you have not have had to have agreed, by then, at some point, I know not when?
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Conversations like this make it plainly obvious why English is a stupid language haha.
Yep, that’s pretty much it. If the speaker didn’t specify exactly, it’s because they didn’t think it was important enough to do so, or they thought it was evident already.
What is the purpose/difference from " 明日の試合に勝ったとすれば、決勝に進める and just making the exact same sentence but making the original verb in ば form (勝てば）
Hello @Asher ,
But how is it different than としても then ? Which if I understand also, is a way to say "Even (も) if we accept this state (として) ?
Asking because I still don’t know how to chose which one in the reviews and keep getting errors trying to put one when bunpro expects another, and I start to feel I just have to cram and memorize by heart the hint text …
I’m in a state that I almost play the detective to find all the things that could help me differentiate all those forms more easily :’)
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