Here a few extracted sentences from a conversation:

起きたら　雪は　降っていて、びっくりしました。 "When I woke up, it was snowing, so I was surprised."

最近　世界中に　どこでも　天気が　可笑しいですね。
"Recently the weather everywhere around the world has been odd, hasn't it."

それに、駅　に　着いたら　電車が　とまっていた　し、タクシーのりばまで　来たら　すごい　れつだったので もう　会議に　間に合わない　と　思いました。

I have 4 simple questions about these sentences.
1) Why is 起きたとき　& 着いたとき not used here in the 1st and 3rd sentences?
2) Why is どこも not used in the 2nd sentence instead of どこでも.
3) The final confusion I have is why not say 列があった instead of 列だった, it sounds to be much unnatural to me.

and yes 4) the し in the fourth sentence is used to give a list of actions, but I don't see any list of actions like "I drink, want, sleep, watch TV..." here.


Thanks very very very much

Ok, keeping in mind i average about 50% on whether or not yudantaiteki or jarvik7 contradict me... (and i think the rest of the time they're just being nice lol)

1) たら can be used to mean "when" for an action in the past. Normally, what follows is an unpleasant situation. It has a different nuance to とき which is more neutral.
2) Because "どこも" just means everywhere. The particle で that is being added is the で in レストランで食べました i think. It's marking the location where the weather was strange. You may have expected that to look like ”どこもで” but no, the も and で particles don't order themselves that way.
3) Unfortunately, if you're not a native speaker, you don't get a vote on what's unnatural. You can't literally translate natural expressions from other languages and expect them to stay natural. There is nothing unnatural about 列だった in that context. 列があった is also fine though. It's sorta the difference between "the taxi rank had a long line" and "there was a long line at the taxi rank" (i'm not translating the sentence you gave, these are just examples).
4) し is used to give a list of reasons (usually excuses or complaints), maybe you're thinking of the XたりYたりする pattern?

you are right I did mix し with XたりYたりする . hmmm

matrixofdynamism Wrote:1) Why is 起きたとき　& 着いたとき not used here in the 1st and 3rd sentences?

In these cases たら draws attention to a sequence of actions. とき would put more emphasis on the exact point in time.
So, if you use 起きたとき in the 1st sentence, the meaning will change to something like "I was surprised, it was snowing (exactly) at the time I woke up".
In 3rd sentence たら gives the meaning like "Plus, after I got to the station, (I found that) the trains there had been suspended and (so on)" and sets the tempo for narration (actions that follow each other, piling up), while とき would be more of informative kind, like "at the exact time when I got to the station, trains were suspended", but the meaning of the sentence in this case is not intended to inform about traffic condition.

hmm I must say, this nuance between とき and たら has been been revealed to me in any of the books that I have. hmm

From A Dictionary of Basic Japanese Grammar

Unlike when clauses in English, toki-clauses do not indicate condition. In other words, toki-clauses are genuine time cluses. In order to indicate condition as expressed in when-clauses, conjunctions like ~たら and と are used. Thus, if [1] expresses a condition which causes the hearer surprise, とき cannot be used.

[1] You will be surprised when you see it.

In this case, たら or と must be used, as in [2]

[2]それを見たら/見ると/見る時*/見た時*おどろきますよ
* indicates an incorrect sentence

matrixofdynamism Wrote:and yes 4) I don't see any list of actions like "I drink, want, sleep, watch TV..." here.

By the way, even with the たりする grammar, you actually only need to mention one action and other actions are implied. You can say 昨夜友達とご飯を食べたりした--Last night I had dinner with my friend (and went drinking, socialized, etc.)

zigmonty Wrote:Ok, keeping in mind i average about 50% on whether or not yudantaiteki or jarvik7 contradict me... (and i think the rest of the time they're just being nice lol)

1) たら can be used to mean "when" for an action in the past. Normally, what follows is an unpleasant situation. It has a different nuance to とき which is more neutral.

The only correction I would make is that たら can be used with unpleasant or pleasant things; there's no negative connotation with it at all.

yudantaiteki Wrote:

zigmonty Wrote:Ok, keeping in mind i average about 50% on whether or not yudantaiteki or jarvik7 contradict me... (and i think the rest of the time they're just being nice lol)

1) たら can be used to mean "when" for an action in the past. Normally, what follows is an unpleasant situation. It has a different nuance to とき which is more neutral.

The only correction I would make is that たら can be used with unpleasant or pleasant things; there's no negative connotation with it at all.

Hmm... cool. Actually, half the reason i reply to these questions is in the hope someone will correct my misunderstandings. Thanks.

My confusion shall be solved if I can get examples of where たら and とき both can fit and also some sentence where only たら OR just とき can be used. I have gained better understanding of this nuance but still am not sure when I can use only one of them and not the other.