I want to say something like "if X or Y, then Z".

For example: "If you don't have time to go to the cinema or you don't really want to watch that movie, then I will go with person X."

もし映画館に行く暇がなければ <OR> その映画をあまり見たくなければ、Xさんと見に行く。

How do I connect both conditions?

It seems that if you connect them with 'and' then you can just use the て-form in the first condition. But I can't find any example how to connect them with an 'or'.

Would appreciate any help. Thanks!

[RawToast]

Without spending too much time looking at that (work), so this may not be the term you're after:

これ とそれと
This or that

Just beware of:

これとそれ
This and that

I am not confident that this is what you want, but I'll leave it here as I am sure someone will correct me here -- and that is a good thing

You can combine the two phrases with それか.

You'll have to ask a native which sounds most natural, but if I were to pose this question to one I'd ask it like this: Which of the following sounds most natural?

もし映画館に行く暇がなければ、もしくはその映画をあまり見たくなければ、Xさんと見に行く。
もし映画館に行く暇がなければ、あるいはその映画をあまり見たくなければ、Xさんと見に行く。
もし映画館に行く暇がなければ、それともその映画をあまり見たくなければ、Xさんと見に行く。

Maybe all of them are a little off, I can't say with absolute certainty.

I think 映画を見に行く is more natural than 映画館に行く, as well.

CaLeDee Wrote:You'll have to ask a native which sounds most natural, but if I were to pose this question to a native I'd ask it like this: Which of the following sounds most natural?

もし映画館に行く暇がなければ、もしくはその映画をあまり見たくなければ、Xさんと見に行く。
もし映画館に行く暇がなければ、あるいはその映画をあまり見たくなければ、Xさんと見に行く。
もし映画館に行く暇がなければ、それともその映画をあまり見たくなければ、Xさんと見に行く。

Maybe all of them are a little off, I can't say with absolute certainty.

I think 映画を見に行く is more natural than 映画館に行く, as well.

They all sound a little stiff but work in writing. それか works as a slightly more casual version of それとも.

映画館に行く works in this case since the question is specifically targeting the action of going to the cinema.

drdunlap Wrote:

CaLeDee Wrote:You'll have to ask a native which sounds most natural, but if I were to pose this question to a native I'd ask it like this: Which of the following sounds most natural?

もし映画館に行く暇がなければ、もしくはその映画をあまり見たくなければ、Xさんと見に行く。
もし映画館に行く暇がなければ、あるいはその映画をあまり見たくなければ、Xさんと見に行く。
もし映画館に行く暇がなければ、それともその映画をあまり見たくなければ、Xさんと見に行く。

Maybe all of them are a little off, I can't say with absolute certainty.

I think 映画を見に行く is more natural than 映画館に行く, as well.

They all sound a little stiff but work in writing. それか works as a slightly more casual version of それとも.

映画館に行く works in this case since the question is specifically targeting the action of going to the cinema.

You had already covered the more casual version so I thought I'd offer alternatives, but yeah, they are quite stiff sounding, especially when spoken.

Wow, I don't even need to ask questions for them to be answered...

Saying that, when I was trying to find an answer to this before, I came across the particle なり. When would this be used as opposed to what was just mentioned?

I'm not entirely sure what "particle なり" you're talking about; there are multiple uses of なり and offhand I can't think how any of them relate to an "or" statement.

yudantaiteki Wrote:I'm not entirely sure what "particle なり" you're talking about; there are multiple uses of なり and offhand I can't think how any of them relate to an "or" statement.

From jisho.org results for なり (first result, a particle):
1: or; whether or not;
2: (after dictionary form verb) as soon as; right after;
3: (after past tense verb) while still; with previous state still in effect

I also got this when trying to search for the grammar for 'or', but I didn't get the things mentioned above by other users, so I was wondering what the difference between this and the other things is.
I see that it has a lot of other uses (which seem to be more common, since they take up more room), but I'm wondering what kind of 'or' this would be.

(For clarification, I searched for the grammar to be used for 'or' and found なり; I then checked it with Rikaisama and jisho.org; I'm fine with all the other uses of it, but the 'or' entry is throwing me for a loop.)

CaLeDee Wrote:

drdunlap Wrote:

CaLeDee Wrote:You'll have to ask a native which sounds most natural, but if I were to pose this question to a native I'd ask it like this: Which of the following sounds most natural?

もし映画館に行く暇がなければ、もしくはその映画をあまり見たくなければ、Xさんと見に行く。
もし映画館に行く暇がなければ、あるいはその映画をあまり見たくなければ、Xさんと見に行く。
もし映画館に行く暇がなければ、それともその映画をあまり見たくなければ、Xさんと見に行く。

Maybe all of them are a little off, I can't say with absolute certainty.

I think 映画を見に行く is more natural than 映画館に行く, as well.

They all sound a little stiff but work in writing. それか works as a slightly more casual version of それとも.

映画館に行く works in this case since the question is specifically targeting the action of going to the cinema.

You had already covered the more casual version so I thought I'd offer alternatives, but yeah, they are quite stiff sounding, especially when spoken.

They can definitely be used when speaking, though. In fact, I don't think I've ever heard それか used in a professional setting. Even amongst friends, however, they're not off limits. Most of the Japanese people I know are academic/literary types, and they use それか less often than the others, at least when they're speaking with me. However, such people are generally viewed as stiff by the rest of society.

Wow, you've actually found a dictionary that's worse than Edict. The pattern is aなりbなり ~ "either a or b" (there are a lot of aXbX either-or patterns).

Daijirin:
②
「…なり…なり」の形で並立助詞的に用いられる。
㋐
例として並べ挙げた中で,どれか一つを選ぶという意を表す。あとの「なり」は省かれることもある。 「困ったときには,父-母-に相談することだ」 「立つ-座る-はっきりしなさい」 「一か月-二か月の保証金を入れてください」
㋑
「大なり小なり」の形で慣用的に用いられる。 「この計画には,大-小-批判が出るだろう」

Also, DoIJG: http://jiten.clanteam.com/volume/interme...tml#-なり-なり (the book probably has a more complete explanation)

vileru Wrote:

CaLeDee Wrote:

drdunlap Wrote:They all sound a little stiff but work in writing. それか works as a slightly more casual version of それとも.

映画館に行く works in this case since the question is specifically targeting the action of going to the cinema.

You had already covered the more casual version so I thought I'd offer alternatives, but yeah, they are quite stiff sounding, especially when spoken.

They can definitely be used when speaking, though. In fact, I don't think I've ever heard それか used in a professional setting. Even amongst friends, however, they're not off limits. Most of the Japanese people I know are academic/literary types, and they use それか less often than the others, at least when they're speaking with me. However, such people are generally viewed as stiff by the rest of society.

My teacher would us あるいは all the time and I know I've heard それとも being used very casually. I'm not too sure about もしくは, though. I couldn't think of any more colloquial alternatives to these. Maybe ひょっとして？But that to me has almost a feeling of surprise to it. Not sure if it can be used in this context.

Vempele Wrote:Wow, you've actually found a dictionary that's worse than Edict.

jisho.org is Edict.

Never use EDICT/jisho.org for E->J translations. There are much better resources out there (like alc.co.jp).

:facepalm: My offline copy is more up to date. WWWJDIC's entry is identical to the one in mine.

yudantaiteki Wrote:

Vempele Wrote:Wow, you've actually found a dictionary that's worse than Edict.

jisho.org is Edict.

Never use EDICT/jisho.org for E->J translations. There are much better resources out there (like alc.co.jp).

Alright, I'll use that if I ever need E-J again.

So なり is specifically 'either X or Y' (XなりYなり) (in the event it's being used like that) as opposed to 'this or that'?

The AなりBなり… pattern is the same as saying:
Aでもいいし、Bでもいいから、何かをする。

A and B indicate two representative choices/examples

dtcamero Wrote:The AなりBなり… pattern is the same as saying:
Aでもいいし、Bでもいいから、何かをする。

A and B indicate two representative choices/examples

Okay, thanks; that makes a lot more sense.

それとも is spoken language, あるいは is written.
それか is spoken, もしくは is written.

However, they're not mutually exclusive. You can use written forms in spoken Japanese and the other way around.

I would phrase the whole thing completely different in the first place, because the way you did it, it leads to a direct translation that's not natural at all.

I didn't memorize what you tried to ask in that sentence above, so i'll give you a similar example:

映画に行かない？もし行かないことにしたら、どうしよう？山田さんに行くか？レストランに行くか？

It doesn't have to be a long sentence, and in speech, you rarely find sentences longer than 8-10 words anyways.

Not the あるいは or the もしくは is what made all the stuff in this thread stiff, but the fact you repeated the whole stuff.

For natural Japanese speech, keep it short and keep it simple.