Japanese Grammar In Its Natural Habitat
Wild Nihongo!
ばよかった / てよかった

ばよかった / てよかった

ばよかった / てよかった Japanese Grammar Lesson

Grammar Type: Phrase

Essential Meaning: I wish X had done Y

Construction: 

  • Group 1 Verbs:
    • Verb conditional form + ばよかった
      • E.g. 話はなせばよかった [I wish X had spoken]
  • Group 2 Verbs:
    • Verb stem + ればよかった
      • E.g. 食たべればよかった [I wish X had eaten]
  • Irregular Verbs:
    • 来くる = 来くればよかった [I wish X had come]
    • する = すればよかった [I wish X had done it]

Notes:

  • ばよかった is an idiomatic usage of the conditional conjunction ば in which some condition did not come to fruition in the past, but the speaker wishes that it had. In other words, ばよかった expresses counterfactual, wishful thinking and can be translated as “I wish X had done Y“. ばよかった conjugates just like ば, but it is only used with verbs and is not used with nouns or adjectives.
  • When a sentence with ばよかった does not specify a subject, the speaker is assumed to be the subject.
    • E.g. あの本ほんを読よめばよかった。[I wish I had read that book.] In this case no subject is specified, so the speaker is assumed to be the subject.
  • When a third person (i.e. someone other than the speaker) wishes someone had done something, the phrase と思おもっている is appended to ばよかった.
    • E.g. ビルは日本にほんへ行いけばよかったと思おもっている。[Bill thinks that it would have been good if he had gone to Japan.] Here a third person named Bill is the subject, so と思おもっている is appended.
  • てよかった (i.e. て-Form + よかった) is a similar grammatical structure to ばよかった. The difference is that てよかった expresses a factual past state or action, while ばよかった expresses a counterfactual past state or action.
    • E.g. あの本ほんを読よんでよかった。[I’m glad that I read that book.]
    • E.g. あの本ほんを読よめばよかった。[I wish I had read that book.]

Example Sentences:

先生せんせいに聞きけばよかった。[It would have been good if I had asked the teacher.]

マークは日本にほんへ行いけばよかったね。[It would have been good if Mark had gone to Japan, don’t you think?]

もっと英語えいごを勉強べんきょうしておけばよかったなあ。[It would have been good if I had studied more English in advance.]

WILD Examples:

Listen to this line from 1:57: これほど設計せっけいの才能さいのうがないなら、天文学者てんもんがくしゃを目指めざせばよかったよ [If it were the case that I didn’t have such a talent for planning, it would have been good if I had tried to become an astronomer.]
This song begins with the following line: イェーイ！君きみを好すきでよかった、このままずっとずっと死しぬまでハッピー、万歳ばんざい！君きみに会あえてよかった、このままずっとずっとラララ二人ふたりで [Yeah! I’m glad that I fell in love with you. Just like this, just like this, I’ll be happy until I die…Banzai! I’m glad that I was able to meet you. Just like this, just like this, la la la, just the two of us]
Listen to this line at 2:00: さようならすることになるなら、もっと優やさしくしとけばよかった [If it’s the case that this is goodbye, I wish I had treated you more kindly.]

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