Nihongo no mori states that before 際 you can use either a "dictionary form" verb or a "-ta form" verb. How does this influence the meaning of the phrase?
Nihongo no mori gives the following sentence as an example:
But, can I also say next sentence?
If so, what is the difference between those two?
I agree that there's a much more clear temporal distinction of with ~した際.
東京へ来た際は、ぜひ私に連絡してください。
Please contact me when you have come to Tokyo.
東京へ来る際は、ぜひ私に連絡してください。
Please contact me when you're coming to Tokyo.
The latter could be when the person decides to go to Tokyo, or when they're about to hop on a plane, or any number of other points in time, whereas in the former it's fairly clear that they'd like to be contacted after the person has arrived.
As far as i can tell, when you use the た form, the action before 際 clearly happens before the second part of the sentence. But when the dictionary form is used, the two actions are closer in time, almost simultaneous.
My grammar book has two examples that i think help to understand it better:
カードを紛失した際はカード会社にすぐ知らせなければならない。
パスポートを申請する際に必要なものを教えてください。
