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Lately, I've been wondering about the meaning of a past tense verb connected
to 上で, like in the 3 examples below:

> 両親とよく相談した上で、留学することにした。
>
> 家を買う場合は、十分調べた上で、決めた方がいい。
>
> よく考えた上で、返事をするつもりだ。

What's the meaning of 過去形の動詞＋上で ?
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2014-04-01T22:18:58.370
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2016-02-23T08:19:31.000
2020-06-17T08:18:27.500
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grammar nuances
Meaning of 過去形の動詞 ＋「[上]{うえ}で」
It means "after doing 〜". Almost like `〜てから`.

>   * 両親とよく相談した上で、留学することにした。 → After discussing it with my parents, I decided
> that I'll study abroad.
>   * 家を買う場合は、十分調べた上で、決めた方がいい。 → When you buy a house, you should choose (it)
> after doing sufficient research.
>   * よく考えた上で、返事をするつもりだ。 → I intend to reply after careful consideration.
>

  
~~There is some other nuance I believe, but I'll have to look it up later.~~
The nuance to it is that the second action is performed based on the result of
the first action (as @TokyoNagoya mentioned). With `〜てから`, no such
relationship is required, meaning that it simply indicates temporal order. For
example

> ○ 昼食を食べてから銀行に行く → "I'll go to the bank after I eat lunch" → Going to the
> bank doesn't depend on me eating lunch; simply states the order of what I'm
> doing.  
>  ?/× 昼食を食べた上で銀行に行く → It introduces a dependency for going to the bank on
> eating lunch. Almost like "As a result of eating lunch, I'll go to the
> bank." Doesn't make much sense.
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2014-04-01T22:33:32.423
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2014-04-02T18:17:23.180
2014-04-02T18:17:23.180
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answer
This is just a supplement to the above answer & comment.

Your question was specific to ~た上で (so I won't expand unless you expand the
question) but FYI there are other different uses of 〜上. I found the following
sentence (from one the Soumatome-goi series) helpful to remember:

> 地図の上では近いのに
>
> 行ってみると
>
> 遠い上に、ひどい道だった
>
> よく調べた上で行けばよかった。
>
> On the map it looked close, but
>
> when I actually went there,
>
> it was far and the roads were bad.
>
> I should have checked before I went.
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2014-04-02T01:30:28.940
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2014-04-02T01:30:28.940
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answer