if
if it’s the case
as for
Structure
- Verb + (の) なら
- い-Adjective + (の) なら
- な-Adjective + (の) なら
- Noun + (の) なら
なら does not attach to nouns or な-adjectives with だ
[condition + なら + result]
[Adding の before なら further emphasizes what comes before it]
I think the hint for this question…
…is a bit confusing as のばあいは is taught to mean “in the case”. Instead, I think なら is (usually?) better translated as “since” (“Since it’s hot…”), and (IMHO) the grammar point for なら should also include “since” as a keyword.
Please correct me if Im wrong here.
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Hey 
I have changed the wording to “if it’s the case” 
なら is often used in reaction to someone statement, when speaker wants to give advice, or opinion.
「熱いなぁ」(It’s hoooot)
「熱いなら、扇風機を点けてください」
If it’s the case that it is hot, please turn on the fan.
The grammar resource for Misa links to the video for と (part 1) but perhaps it would be better to link to part 3 for なら?
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@Ambo100 Much better! Thank you for letting us know so that we could update the Readings section. Cheers!
Can anyone help me out with the phrase “condition in context”? I’m not really understanding what that means.
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Hey and welcome on the community forums 
Just think of it as condition, I have changed it on the site too.
Cheers!
I study grammar on Bunpro following Genki path. In Genki (lesson 13) they explain なら as :
A statement of the form “noun A なら predicate X” says that predicate X applies only to A and is not more generally valid.
I’m struggling to connect this explanation with Bunpro one. Is it a completely different grammar point?
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I’m also confused by this.
I don’t know if you’ll see this but here’s how I understand it (also following Genki).
Genki is only using one of なら’s uses and that’s to answer a question counterfactually to contrast the question and provide an indirect response which isn’t rude. They explain this as:
BunPro restate this as:
A remains the same but B is used instead of X on BunPro.
The Dictionary of Basic Japanese Grammar also say this about this way of using なら:
Again, S1 = A and S2 = X/B.
Let’s look at the examples examples.
Genki
Q. ブラジルに行ったことがありますか。
A. チリなら行ったことがありますが、ブラジルは行ったことがありません。
Here we’re seeing the speaker make a counterfactual statement to contrast the question. A/S1 = チリ and X/B/S2 is 行ったことがある.
行ったことがある only applies to Chile and not Brazil.
So even though なら has more applications outside of answering questions in an indirect way, that’s the only usage you learn with Genki, just be aware that it can mean other things as well.
I hope that helped you understand this isn’t a separate grammar point, just a specific use of it!
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This was a great video on the differences between たら and なら.
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I’ve watched a couple of videos about たら and なら and I think I’m getting the idea of how they work, but some sentences sound confusing to me.
また行くなら、帰って来ないでください。
This one was in my review today. From my understanding, not coming back would happen after the person going, so I’d have to use また行ったら. Or do we use なら because it’s a request?
田舎に住んだら 、車が必要です。
Correct me if I’m wrong on this one, but from what I understood, 住んだら means that the person is already living in the countryside. If I say 住むなら, it means that the person is going to live in the countryside, but it’s not yet.
Love Miku
What do OK Noun and NG Noun mean? I’ve never seen those terms before.
OK comes from okay and NG comes from no good.
You can use the stuff marked as OK, but you shouldn’t use the stuff marked as NG.
Ah okay, so basically it’s saying that " Noun + は・が・を + なら" cannot be used?
this was extremely helpful, thx a lot!
From my understanding, 「なら」is more of an “if” and 「たら」is more of a “when,” is this right? I need some more explanation into the nuance.
I haven’t learned 「もし」yet but it’s my assumption that you can append it to the start of a sentence if the if/when dichotomy is unclear. Though I’m more concerned about how 「なら」and 「たら」relate to each other by themselves, when should I use one over the other?
もし can be used with hypotheticals to reinforce that nuance. Reinforcing that something is hypothetical means you’re less certain about it. For example, you’ll often see もし in expressions like “もしよかったら…” because the speaker doesn’t want to presume how the other party feels.
If we’re comparing なら and たら only, then the biggest difference is that the sequence of events is reversed.
In “AたらB”, event B occurs after event A. “Once/when/if A happens, then B.”
In “AならB”, event A can occur after event B but not before it. “If A is/were/will be the case, then B”.
I found this example on Amazon (as a sticker):
飲んだら乗るな - don’t drive if you drank something
乗るなら飲むな - if you’re going to drive, don’t drink
From a learner’s point of view, the bigger point is that たら can be used for almost all conditionals (as long as B follows A) while なら is much more restricted and is primarily used for hypothetical statements (if A is the case) and counterfactual ones (if A wasn’t the case) - however, たら can often be used for these as well.
The primary use case for なら where たら can’t be used is when there is no temporal relationship at all. For example:
日本語の文法を勉強するなら文プロがいい
If you’re going to study Japanese grammar, bunpro is good
(I guess the English translation isn’t optimal, but I wanted to use “if”…)
I found this page (in Japanese) with a table that indicates when which conditional can be used.
According to the table, たら can be used for everything except:
- natural conditionals like “if A happens, then B always happens” ( なら also can’t be used)
There’s a triangle instead of a cross because たら is still OK-ish in speech but と and ば are more natural.
This is an example from the link that is described as OK but not really natural:
春になったら、桜が咲きます
I can say this right now because it’s winter where I live. Once spring comes around, the cherries will blossom. But it can’t really express “Cherries blossom in spring” (every time, naturally) like と could. - past habits like “every time when A, I used to B” (なら can also not be used)
たら doesn’t work here because it’s not just one event; it can be used for one-off events that happened in the past (“when A, then B happened”). - when there is no temporal relationship (only なら works), e.g. as in my previous example above.
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This reply is an excellent resource, I think I got the basic difference down, but I’ll reference it if I ever get confused. Bookmarked.
So would you use と and ば instead? How would you construct that?
I would ask what the nuance is with と vs ば, but it’d fit better in one of their respective threads and I could almost infinitely ask about nuance so I don’t want to kill you with grammar questions, haha.
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