〜てから: After Doing (and Since)

A plain て-chain already tells you actions happened in order. But sometimes you need to say more than "and then" — you need "first X finishes, and only then Y," or "ever since X." Both of those are the job of 〜てから: the て-form plus the particle から. It is one of the most useful little patterns at N4, because it does two things a bare て-chain leaves vague — it insists on completion-before-continuation, and it measures elapsed time since an event.

The build: 〜て + から

Attach から directly to the て-form, with no break between them: 洗って → 洗ってから. The clause after it is what happens once the first action is done.

The difference from a plain て-chain is emphasis. 手を洗って、食べます would simply narrate "wash hands, eat." 手を洗ってから食べます foregrounds that the washing must be complete first — the eating genuinely depends on it. That "and not before" force is the whole reason to choose てから.

Why it beats a plain て-chain here

Because てから spells out the dependency, it is the natural choice for instructions, procedures, and rules — anywhere "do this only after that" is the point.

Note something these two show that the causal て-form cannot do: the second clause here is a command or request (遊びなさい, 飲んでください), and that is perfectly fine after てから. Because てから is about timing and completion, not cause, it happily precedes an instruction. This is a useful contrast to keep straight.

Different subjects, one dependency

てから is at its most useful when the two clauses have different subjects and the second genuinely waits on the first. The particle から makes that dependency explicit even across a change of subject — something a bare て-chain leaves ambiguous. The second event is held back until the first is done.

In each case the second action is impossible, or pointless, until the first completes: you can't eat together before Dad is home, you shouldn't cross before the light changes, you'd rather not leave until the rain lets up. That "wait for X, then Y" logic is exactly what a plain て-chain can't guarantee but てから states outright.

The second job: "since / ever since"

〜てから has a second life that surprises learners. Combined with a span of time and a verb like なる ("become") or 経つ ("elapse"), it measures how long it has been since an event. This is the "since" reading.

Here 来て（きて）is the て-form of 来る. This "since" use is doing something no plain て-chain can express — it holds one event as a fixed starting point and looks at everything that has followed from it. If you want "it's been N years/months since…," 〜てから is the form you need.

Register notes: 〜て以来 and 〜てからというもの

Two higher-register cousins express the "since" idea with more weight. 〜て以来（いらい） (formal / written) means "ever since" and is common in essays and news: 就職して以来 ("ever since I started working"). 〜てからというもの (literary / emphatic) adds a dramatic "ever since that moment…" flavor, used when a single event changed everything: 引っ越してからというもの ("ever since I moved…"). In everyday conversation, plain 〜てから covers all of these — save the fancier forms for writing.

Common mistakes

Key takeaways

• 〜てから = て-form + から, attached directly: "after doing X (and only then) Y."
• It is stronger than a plain て-chain — it foregrounds that X must be completed before Y.
• Because it is about timing, not cause, it can be followed by a command or request (してから飲んでください).
• Its second job is "since / ever since": 〜てから + time span + なる／経つ measures elapsed time.
• Don't stack てから on every step; use it only where the dependency genuinely matters. For the finer contrast with 〜た後で, see the two ways to say "after".