Conditional form of future progressive

Question

I am exercising conditional forms (I am still a beginner), and I have a bit of a problem bending this case:

I want to say "If you will be living in Japan, it is recommended that you learn Japanese."

Now if I write:

日本に住んでいるならば、日本語を学ぶことだ。

that would mean "If you are living in Japan, .."

if I want to underline the future tense, I should be using 住んでいます, right? But how do I make condition with a -masu form of the verb?

So far, I've learned about:

-eba form, but that is (to my knowledge) used with the dictionary form of the verbs;

-naraba, which again is used with the dictionary form of the verb;

-tara, which is used with the informal past form.

Can I say:

日本に住んでいますならば、日本語を学ぶことだ。

How do I make conditional form of a verb in future tense?

Thank you for reading this far. Any help is appreciated.

Answer 1

First of all, the tense you are looking for is what is often called the non-past, rather than future. In Japanese, the non-past form sort of doubles as a present and future tense. (More about this here: Would the plain form of a verb usually be translated as future tense?)

住む is the base, plain, dictionary form, and this is the non-past tense. Attaching a 〜ます to make 住みます just makes it politer.

住んでいる is the present progressive form of the verb 住む. Therefore, adding 〜ます to make it 住んでいます will not turn it back to the non-past form. It's just a politer way of saying 住んでいる.

As you have mentioned, 〜ならば is used with the dictionary form of the verb. Luckily, the dictionary form is exactly what you want, because it is the non-past tense:

日本に住むならば、日本語 を学ぶことだ。
If you (will) live in Japan, learn Japanese.

Other examples:

• 走る{はしる}ならば、スニーカーを履く{はく}ことだ。
  If you (will) run, wear sneakers.
• 食べる{たべる}ならば、フォークを使う{つかう}ことだ。
  If you (will) eat, use a fork.