Japanese Conditional Form -
Part 3. ~ば (~ba)/~なら (~nara) Sentence -
Intermediate Lessons: 26

This lesson will continue to discuss the next Japanese conditional form - ば (ba) / なら (nara) Sentence.

ば (ba) sentence is used for Verb and い-Adjective while なら (nara) sentence is used for な-Adjective and Noun.

Sentence Patterns

Let's study the sentence patterns...

Most of the above are quite straight forward except for changing the verb in Affirmative sentence. We'll call this Japanese conditional form ば-form (ba-form).

Rules for Changing Dictionary-form to ば-form for Verbs

The following are the rules for the 3 groups of Japanese verbs.

Group 1 Verbs

Group 1 verbs always end up with words containing u-sound.

To change group 1 verbs to ば-form, change the u-sound to e-sound in the last word. After that append ば (ba) to the changed words and you will get the ば-form of the verb.

For example, this group 1 verb かく (kaku) ends up with く (ku). If you change the u-sound to e-sound, く (ku) becomes け (ke). Adding ば (ba) at the end, you will get かけば (kakeba).

This group 1 verb あそぶ (asobu) ends up with ぶ (bu). If you change the u-sound to e-sound, ぶ (bu) becomes べ (be). Adding ば (ba) at the end, you will get あそべば (asobeba).

かう	→	かえば
まつ	→	まてば
はじまる	→	はじまれば
よむ	→	よめば
はなす	→	はなせば
およぐ	→	およげば

Group 2 Verbs

All group 2 verbs end up with る (ru). To change to ば-form, simply replace る (ru) with れば (reba) and you will get the ば-form of the verb.

For example, this Japanese verb たべる (taberu) is a group 2 verb. To change to ば-form, replace る (ru) with れば (reba) and you will get たべれば (tabereba).

This group 2 verb ねる (neru) means go to bed. Change る (ru) to れば (reba) and you will get ねれば (nereba).

やめる	→	やめれば
きえる	→	きえれば

Group 3 Verbs

Group 3 verbs are irregular verbs. You just have to memorize them. The ば-form of くる (kuru) is くれば (kureba) and the ば-form of する (suru) is すれば (sureba).

くる	→	くれば
する	→	すれば

Examples of Japanese Conditional Form ば (ba) / なら (nara) Sentence

Comparing と (to) and ば (ba) / なら (nara) Sentences

Actually among all the Japanese conditional forms, と (to) sentence is the most difficult to construct as it has many restrictions.

Grammatically と (to) sentence can all be changed to ば (ba) / なら (nara) sentence. For example...

The second example above that used ば-form is also correct.

As you know, と (to) sentence has many regulations in Sentence 2. You cannot have expressions of one's will, hope, judgement, permission, order, invitation or request, etc.

However, you can use these expressions if you use ば (ba) / なら (nara) sentence. For example...

Example 1 above which used と (to) sentence is incorrect because Sentence 2 is speaker's hope. The sentence becomes correct if you use ば (ba) / なら (nara) sentence as in example 2.

From the above examples, you'll notice that you can use ば (ba) / なら (nara) to connect to sentence where you could not connect using と (to).

In that case, since all と (to) sentence can be changed to ば (ba) / なら (nara) sentence grammatically, then you probably think why do we learn と (to) sentence in the first place.

We are now only focusing on the grammatical point of view. So it may seem that there's no point of learning と (to) sentence.

But there are other aspects and reasons (which I'll explain in next lesson) that why different types of Japanese conditional forms are available.

Japanese Conditional Form ば (ba) / なら (nara) Sentence Regulation

Although ば (ba) / なら (nara) sentence is less strict than と (to) sentence, there's still one regulation that you need to take care of.

Action Verb is verb that requires some action of the speaker. For example: 食べる (taberu), 飲む (nomu), 走る (hashiru), 行く (iku), 見る (miru), 遊ぶ (asobu), 出る (deru), 出掛ける (dekakeru), etc.

State Verb is verb that requires no action. It's a state. For example: ある (aru) and いる (iru) are existence, no action required. A potential verb is also considered as a state verb.

Let's use an example to explain the above sentence regulation...

Example 1 is obviously incorrect because you cannot have one's hope in Sentence 2 for と (to) sentence.

In Example 2 above, who is going to Tokyo? → "I" (Sentence 1's subject). Who want to see Tokyo Skytree? → "I" (Sentence 2's subject).

Since the subjects of both sentences are the same ("I"), and the verb in Sentence 1 is an action verb - 行く (iku), you cannot have speaker's hope 見たい (mitai) in Sentence 2.

Therefore Example 2 is also incorrect because it did not fulfill the regulation for ば (ba) / なら (nara) sentence.

So the correct answer is to use たら (tara) sentence for the above example. たら (tara) sentence (which you'll learn in next lesson) has less regulations as compared to と (to) and ば (ba) / なら (nara) sentences.

Grammatically it can replace all と (to) and ば (ba) / なら (nara) sentences. However, there are reasons why we use と (to) sentence and why we use ば (ba) / なら (nara) sentence. I'll get into that in next lesson.

Check the Examples Against the Sentence Regulation

Let's re-look at the 8 examples of Japanese conditional form ば (ba) / なら (nara) sentence above and check them against the sentence regulation.

Practices on Japanese Conditional Form ば (ba) / なら (nara) Sentence

Let's check if you can tell whether the following 2 examples are correct for the Japanese conditional form ば (ba) / なら (nara) sentence.

Try to solve them yourself before looking at the answers below.

Answers

Have you got your answers right?

Related Pages

Lesson 24: と (to) Sentence.

Lesson 25: ても (temo) Sentence.

Lesson 27: たら (tara) Sentence.

Lesson 28: たら (tara) Sentence Special Case.

Like This Page?

Affiliate Link

Learn Japanese Free

Learn Japanese Software

Electronic Dictionaries

Learn Japanese FAQ

Japanese School Directory