Translation of “if that’s the case”

Question

Is there a nice way in Esperanto to translate the English phrase “if that’s the case”. For example:

I suspect my neighbour is doing something illegal. If that’s the case I will call the police.

I think you can say the same thing in French with “si c’est le cas”.

I was thinking maybe you could use the word okazo, because that works in other situations. For example “in that case” could translated by “tiuokaze”. But “se tio estas la okazo” doesn’t sound right to me.

Answer 1

I think that if that’s the case and si c’est le cas are idiomatic expressions. In Tekstaro you'll find sentences with se tiel,, se tiel estas, and se estas tiel, (including the final comma):

Mi suspektas, ke mia najbaro faras ion kontraŭleĝan. Se tiel (estas), mi vokos la policon.

Using just se tiel, (without esti afterwards) seems to work no matter when the action takes place:

Ili verŝajne iros naĝi morgaŭ. Se tiel estos, ankaŭ mi iros.

Ili verŝajne iros naĝi morgaŭ. Se tiel, ankaŭ mi iros.

In that sense, se tiel, and tiuokaze are very similar in my opinion.

Answer 2

In my opinion Vidamuzo's answer is the best: se tiel is a very good expression and it is actually used.

I would like to point out that tiuokaze or en tiu okazo translate if that happens, while if that's the case might also mean if that's how things are with no particular event in sight, as das-g has already written: a better translation for this second meaning is simply en tiu kazo or its shorter variant tiukaze, which good speakers are careful to distinguish from en tiu okazo and tiuokaze.

Answer 3

The following answer is based more on my "Sprachgefühl" than on actual Esperanto vocabulary knowledge, so take it with a grain of salt.

Don't look for too literal translations. What you usually mean by "if that's the case" is "if that's true". So if the question is the (current or past) factuality, you could use

Se mi pravas ...

or

Se ĝi estas vera ...

It's different if you're using "If that's the case" for referring possible (but yet uncertain) occasions in the future.

Someone might step on my lawn. If that’s the case, I will call the police.

... . Se tio okazos ...

(Don't use the noun "okazo" for that, though, as its meaning is more that of "something that happens/happened" ("occurance") or of "occasion" (concrete event) rather than that of "way things may go/be". I.e., it implies an event, not just a state.)