So I’m always worried about the informal and formal speech in japanese and I need to know if can it be used in informal speech? I haven’t heared it in anime or somewhere else and whats its diffrence with ながら?
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I feel like this is a construction that can be used everywhere, but it’s more on the formal/writing side of the spectrum. If we’re are talking about the same construction: 足を止めたとたんに、先の崖の端が崩れた (created myself this one)
Or maybe not that formal, now when I think about it I can imagine it being used to make an excuse for being late in front of 部長, or something like that, but I also have a deep connection of it with some kind of anime like Golden Kamui or Mushishi, something older for a regular タメ口.
ながら is more like “while”, とたんに is “the moment something has happened”
私は普通に皿洗いしながらユーチューブかアニメを観る
Hopefully other people can give some more nuance about the topic
In speech, it’s about as common as the English phrase, “the moment that”. Which is relatively uncommon but not unheard of in casual speech.
For example
バスを降りた途端、カバンを忘れてきたことに気づいた。
The moment that I got off the bus, I realized that I forgot my bag.
(this is despite the direct translation of “the moment that” being 「しゅんかん」, which you will definitely hear in casual speech)
I would say that it’s the kind of phrase that if you used it without hesitation, a native speaker might start thinking, “hey this person knows more Japanese than I thought”