54786
Sentence taken from [this
question](https://japanese.stackexchange.com/questions/54773/what-
is-%E3%81%A3%E3%81%A6-in-%E3%81%A9%E3%81%86%E3%81%8B%E3%81%97%E3%82%89%E3%81%A3%E3%81%A6)：

> 「そうねぇ、私も考えていたのよ。 **捨ててしまうんなら取っておいたらどうかしら** って。」  
>  "Yeah, right. I , too, was thinking that it would (probably) be just as
> good to keep it as to throw it away." (translation thanks to l'electeur)

I'm more interested in the part in bold. I'm very confused by this double
conditional construction AならBたらどうかしら. Literally I'd translate this as "If you
were to end up throwing it away, I wonder how it would be if you kept hold of
it". Whilst my translation is clearly gibberish, I can see how it might turn
into the good translation, but only because I've seen the good translation. I
certainly couldn't have worked that out for myself.

Could you provide some clarification (perhaps with simpler examples) on how to
parse this sentence and on how the grammar works here?
CC BY-SA 3.0
2017-11-26T15:18:29.103
54775
2022-03-10T02:09:18.470
7944
question
grammar conditionals
Understanding AならBたらどうかしら
> 「捨{す}ててしまうん **なら** 取{と}っておい **たら** どうかしら」

In the original question, only one sentence was given without further context,
which was all good because the question was about the usage of the 「って」.

I added my translation only as an extra service, so I did not explain anything
about the construct in question.

The situation I had in mind was one in which someone, possibly the speaker
herself, had originally decided to throw away or at least leaned toward
throwing away an object, but its owner (again, possibly the speaker herself)
is now leaning toward keeping it instead.

Assuming that that is what is happening, this 「なら」 would actually be closer to
" _ **rather than**_ " in meaning and nuance than pure conditional. What I
mean by this is that 「捨ててしまうんなら」 would be synonymous to 「捨ててしまう **くらいなら** 」.

「A + くらいなら + B」 means "B rather than A". Thus, this person is saying that
「取っておく」 might even be a better option than to 「捨ててしまう」. Thus, the speaker is
making the suggestion of "how about keeping it" to herself or another person.
CC BY-SA 4.0
2017-11-27T02:21:54.270
54786
2022-03-10T02:09:18.470
2022-03-10T02:09:18.470
30454
54775
answer