N5 grammar

〜てから

tekara

Only after doing one thing

Formation

てから makes the first action a condition for the second: only once this is done. A plain て chain merely lists events in order, so this is the stronger claim. Use it when the sequence genuinely matters.

Examples

〜てから is marked in each sentence. Tap any word for its dictionary entry.

  1. The school was founded seventy years ago.

  2. Five years have gone by since my father died.

  3. She closed the door tightly behind her.

  4. He didn't start to paint until he was thirty.

  5. She put the chain on the door and opened it a crack.

The explanation is ours, written for this site. Example sentences from Tatoeba (CC BY 2.0 FR), each machine-checked to actually contain the pattern. Furigana is generated automatically, so a rare reading may be imperfect.