Word
雷 が 鳴ったら、 パソコン の 電源 を 切る よう に して います。kaminari ga nattara, pasokon no dengen o kiru you ni shite imasu.
Meaning
When thunder starts, I make it a rule to turn off the computer power.
Part of speech
sentence
Pronunciation
Course
Lesson
Breakdown of kaminari ga nattara, pasokon no dengen o kiru you ni shite imasu.
をo
direct object particle
がga
subject particle
のno
possessive case particle
パソコンpasokon
computer (PC)
Questions & Answers about kaminari ga nattara, pasokon no dengen o kiru you ni shite imasu.
Why is 鳴ったら built from the past form 鳴った? Does it mean the thunder already happened?
Not necessarily. In Japanese, the conditional pattern 〜たら is made by attaching ら to the plain past form of a verb.
So:
- 鳴る = to sound
- 鳴った = sounded
- 鳴ったら = if / when it sounds
Even though it uses the past form shape, 〜たら often refers to a future condition. The idea is:
- after thunder sounds / if thunder sounds, then...
So the sentence is not mainly about the past. It is setting up a condition: when that happens, this is what I do.
Why is it 雷が and not 雷は?
が marks 雷 as the subject of 鳴る.
- 雷が鳴る = thunder sounds / it thunders
Using が is the most neutral way to describe the event itself.
If you said 雷は鳴ったら, it would sound more contrastive or topical, as if you were talking specifically about thunder in contrast with something else. In this sentence, that is usually unnecessary.
So 雷が鳴ったら is the natural choice for when thunder sounds.
Why does Japanese use 鳴る for thunder?
