nihongo wo benkyou shitai

日本語：	[verb (base 6)] から
English:	After doing...

Quite how I've got to my fourth year of Japanese without knowing this I don't know, especially as it is a JLPT4 requirement. But, here we are.

Unless you've been living under a grammatical rock, から will be a familiar construct meaning 'because'. I covered this way back here. When used as such it implies and cause and effect relationship between two clauses.

However, when used after the ーて form of a verb, から does not convey such a strict relationship between what comes before から and what comes after. Instead ーてから simply implies an order of action; essentially 'after doing X, I did Y'. Compare the following:

English:	After seeing a film starring koyuki, I sent an email to my friend.
Jenglish:	[koyuki][starred][film][saw][after][friend][to][mail][sent]
日本語	小雪が主演した映画を見てから、友人にメールを送った。

English:	Because I saw a film starring koyuki, I sent an email to my friend.
Jenglish:	[koyuki][starred][film][saw][because][friend][to][mail][sent]
日本語	小雪が主演した映画を見たから友人にメールを送った。

In the first example, we stating a sequence of actions, with no relationship implied. In the second example, the inference is that we sent the email because we saw the film.

The tense of the overall sentence is controlled by the verb tense of the second action. Compare:

English:	After sending an email to koyuki, I cleaned the house.
Jenglish:	[koyuki][to][email][send][after][house][cleaned]
日本語：	小雪にメールを送ってから家を掃除しました。

English:	After sending an email to koyuki, I will clean the house.
Jenglish:	[koyuki][to][email][send][after][house][clean]
日本語	小雪にメールを送ってから家を掃除します。

Note: Maybe the second example here could use a 予定です or つもりです on the end to mean 'plan to' or 'intend to'. Any ideas?

So, that's the easy part. Now to take some examples from the web...

Example 1:

I found this one as a blog title (http://hamchu.exblog.jp). It all seems pretty straight-forward so let's deconstruct it into Jenglish.

日本語：	見てから読む？映画の原作
Jenglish:	[watch][after][read?][film][of][original work]

It's casual Japanese which isn't one of my strong suits, but I think this translates to Reading after watching the film? The film's original work

Example 2:

Here's another example from a website (http://homepage3.nifty.com/kinsan)

日本語：	２００６年４月で二回目の脳出血で倒れてから１２年が経過しました。
Jenglish:	[2006][April][で?][twice][ordinal counter][cerebral hemorrhage][to collapse][after][12 years][passage/progress][to do]

A slightly more difficult one. The hardest bit for me was the で particle at the beginning; I couldn't work out why you'd use it after a date. The only thing I can think of is that is the ーて conjugation of です。 So my translation is It's April 2006 and after collapsing twice because of cerebral hemorrhage, 12 years have passed.

Example 3:

The final example comes from a corporate web site (http://www.trendmicro.co.jp/hcall/index.asp).

日本語：	メールボックスを検索するときは、添付ファイルをハードディスクに保存してから検索してください。
Jenglish:	[mail box][to retrieve][when],[attachment][file][hard disk][on][to store][after][search + please]

Umm. Not sure about this, but I translate it as When retrieving the mailbox, after storing file attachments on the the hard disk, please search for them.

またね・・・