宝くじが当たったら

[Guregori]

宝くじが当たったら

 

[masaegu]

こんにちは！

I have a question about conditionals in Japanese, specifically writing about what I would do if I won the lottery.

I believe the "If I won the lottery" can be expressed as: 宝くじが当たったら. But I'm not so sure what comes next. I think I can use the standard non-past (plain form or -masu form) for example: 宝くじが当たったら、世界中を旅行します。"If I won the lottery, I'd travel all over the world."

Is it also possible to use verb-たい and would that change the meaning?

The "rules" surrounding verb forms in subjunctive mood inJapanese are not nearly as rigid as they are in European languages. All that matters is that the output sounds natural to the Japanese ear.

「宝くじが当たったら、世界中を旅行します。」 sounds very natural and it expresses a pretty strong desire to use the money that way.

Other natural-sounding verb phrases are:
旅行したいと思います
旅行したい（です）
旅行するつもりです
旅行すると思います

The by-the-book, Japanese-as-a-foreign-language version might be 旅行するでしょう or 旅行するだろう but very few native speakers would actually say either in a natural setting.

 

[Guregori]

Thanks a lot masaegu! It's a lot clearer now.