# "when" + past participle



## pomme_pomme

For example:
1- "when cooked, this plant is edible"
2- "when crushed, these berries make a potent red dye"
3- "when exposed to direct sunlight for too long, milk goes sour"
4- "when brushed, straight hair often becomes static and flyaway"

I apologize for not asking the question in Japanese. I've only just started learning and I'm really not confident. I can read and write hiragana and katakana and several hundred kanji, but am not so good when it comes to grammar. Expect many many questions from me in the near future! If you can help, many thanks!

(by the way, this has been cross posted to the Spanish and Slavic forums, because I'm learning three languages. )


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## Captain Haddock

The particle と is used for conditional statements in which there is a naturally expected outcome.

"When cooked, this plant is edible."
この植物は火が通ると、食用になる。


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## Matching Mole

Welcome to the Japanese forum (although I have not been active here very long myself). I'm looking forward to your "many many" questions, at least the ones I can answer .

Just to note, since you mentioned "past participle" that the verb preceding と (meaning if, when) as Cpt Haddock has described, must be _non_-past, as in his example. The final clause determines tense if it is a statement about the past.

This conditional form is restricted to outcomes that are an inevitable or reliable result of the action, or that are not controllable. So it cannot be used where decisions can be made about the outcome, when it is voluntary or requested, etc.

Also on the subject of "when" you might also want to contrast と with とき (時) which follows the clause in a similar way to と but is not conditional. It means something like "at the time when..."


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## Aoyama

> "When cooked, this plant is edible."
> この植物は火が通ると、食用になる。


I'd rather say : kono shokubutsu wa hi ga to(u)ruto, *taberareru* , instead of shoku yo ni naru
This being said, Matching Mole is very right in his explanation. Here the form *-ta *is no used, so it can't be called a use with past participle.


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## pomme_pomme

Thanks for the explanations. Ima wa, wakaru. Mina-san arigatou gozaiumasu!


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## Flaminius

Captain Haddock said:


> "When cooked, this plant is edible."
> この植物は火が通ると、食用になる。


One can also say, "この植物は火を通すと、食用になる/食べられる/食べられるようになる."  Captain Haddock used an intranstive verb and I used the transitive counterpart (通る vs 通す).  The key here is that _to_-subordinate clause can have a different subject from that of the main clause.  So the alternatives literally say;
This plant, when [they] cook, it becomes edible.

The first subject is a vague someone, someone who cooks the plant.  Then the second one is the plant.  The whole sentence is strung together by the topic (or simply what we are talking about) that remains the same through-out, "this plant."

Perhaps I have been too long-winding to have you read the conclusion but here it goes  :
You can use a regular verb in active voice in order to write a _to_-subordinate clause.  No need to make it passive or use an intransitive verb.  While *Captain Haddock*'s answer is perfect, not every transitive verb has an intransitive counterpart.

For other sentences in the query, I, therefore, would say:
2- この実はつぶすと強力な赤色染料になる。
3- 牛乳は長時間日光にさらすと、すっぱくなる。
4- 真っ直ぐな髪は、ブラシを掛けると、静電気を帯びてふわふわになることがよくある。


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## pomme_pomme

thanks Flaminus, although currently the transitive v intransitive pretty much goes over my head unfortunately. I understand the difference in principle, but I'm having trouble understanding it in relation to the given examples, gomen! I've read your reply over and over and I'm still confused, probably because I haven't studied this area of grammar before. Can you explain again?


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## Flaminius

Okay, *pomme_pomme*, here is a more refined version.



> この植物は火が通ると、食用になる。


At the risk of over-simplification, I say "火が通る" is an intransitive verb meaning "to get cooked." The subject of the verb is "this plant." In the latter half of the sentence (the main clause), 食用になる is another verb (to become edible) with the same subject.  I sense *Captain Haddock* took great pains to have the same subject for both the subordinate 火が通ると and the main 食用になる.

It is not always desirable to have the same subject in both clauses in the _to_-construction.  Nor is it necessary as I have explained in the previous post.  The subordinate clause can have a different subject from that of the main clause.   When a different subject is allowed, you have a wilder selection for the verb in the subordinate clause.

If you had to use the same subject through-out the sentence, frequently you would have to 1. find the intransitive counterpart of the transitive verb you could have used with a different subject or to 2. passivise the subordinate clause.  Option 1 is not always available as I have said _supra_.  Option 2 is sort of always possible but passivisation often comes across as cumbersome and sometimes changes the nuances.

To illustrate my points with "when brushed, straight hair often becomes static and flyaway";
let's suppose we used ブラシを掛ける in order to express the idea of English "to brush."  It is a transitive verb, so "straight hair" should be the object in this sentence.  An appropriate intransitive verb or passivisation can make a semantic object the syntactic subject, of a sentence.  Since "straight hair" is the subject of the main clause (to become static and flyaway), that would be a great means to have the same subject for the whole sentence.  Using Option 1 or 2, however, is impractical here.

First, Option 1 is unavailable since there is no intransitive counterpart for ブラシを掛ける.

Second, Option 2 would have the sentence;
真っ直ぐな髪は、ブラシを掛けられると、静電気を帯びてふわふわになる.  Yes, it is grammatically possible but passive here is extremely awkward.

Whew, I think that's it for now.  Be very picky and feel free to ask more questions.


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## Captain Haddock

I can see Flaminius's helpful post being rather confusing, depending how much a Japanese learner thinks in terms of grammar. 

If I can try to summarize what I think Flaminius is saying:

• English is strict about having the same subject in both clauses in the "when" constructions that Pomme-Pomme gave examples of.
"when [this plant] cooked, this plant is edible"

• Japanese is much more relaxed. Subject, smubject! Just set the topic with は, state your condition however you like followed by と, and then state the result. 

The looseness of certain aspects of Japanese still confounds me at times.


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## pomme_pomme

Errrrr....thanks Flaminus  Honestly I'm trying hard to grasp what you're saying, but it still evades me. This isn't a criticism of you, but obviously you've been taught, or have learnt, to explain it in a way that is too advanced for me at the moment. If you think you're over simplifying anything, trust me, you're not! It's still very long winded. Please don't take offence, ok?

Captain Haddock, thanks. Looseness? I thought it was completely the opposite  I'm too much of a newbie to make conclusions yet though. Feel free to PM me and elaborate, if you can!


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## Flaminius

> Japanese is much more relaxed. Subject, smubject!


This captures what I wanted to say far better than my 400 or more superfluous words.  Thank you, Captain.


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## pomme_pomme

Flaminus, I wasn't criticizing you. Some people may be able to understand you perfectly, but others won't. I'm just part of the latter, that's all.


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