Why don´t u use "if" and "would" in the same sentence?

Question

Sometimes I just don´t understand english grammar...In which case can I use "if" and "would"..I heard of the idiom "If you would"...But u can not say "If I would be..." .. But a couple of days ago I heard an english woman say "If I would speak english like you...."... Isn´t that wrong? My teacher always told us "NEVER use "If" and "Would" together".... And what´s the difference between "If I was in your shoes" and "If I were in your shoes" ??????????Please help me!!!

Answer 1

I am amazed at the incorrect answers here.

You CAN use if and would in the same sentence:
If I would have gone to the play, I would have seen Lincoln shot

You can use if and would together quite easily especially when the tense of the verb is perfect.

You cannot use would and be together because we still have the single use of subjunctive mood in English.

If I were king, I would get rid of the 15-year-olds who think they know the right answers in Yahoo! Answers

Here "If I was king..." is completely wrong in formal English. In conversational English, few people use the subjunctive "If I were..." anymore, but in written English and formal spoken English you must use the subjunctive.

The CORRECT form is "If I were in your shoes..."

Answer 2

You're not alone. A lot of my friends don't get English grammar sometimes. Even I get confused sometimes. And we're native-born Americans!
Your question is a little confusing, too... ^_^ ...but I'll answer it as best as I can. I don't know what prompted your teacher to say that you can't use "if" and "would" together; but a lot of people do that and I don't think that's bad grammar. Maybe your teacher was trying to make sure that you use "could" instead of "would;" that fits better in many situations. Like, "If I could.... something something."
Your second question- not much difference except the words "was" and "were." In that case, the correct usage would be "If I were in your shoes." And don't ask me why we use a plural verb for a singular noun with the word "I," because I really don't know! English grammar can get really screwed up sometimes. :) Good luck.

Answer 3

Here's the thing:

Proper grammar dictates that you can't use "if" and "would" in the same CLAUSE (ie. referring to the same subject and verb). You certainly should use them both in the same sentence, when the sentence has two clauses. ("If you were listening, you would have known this.")

Proper grammar also dictates that an unreal condition requires the subjunctive, which unfortunately looks a lot like the past tense in the 2nd person and all plurals.

If I were
If you were
If he/she/it were
If we were
If they were

So (as you can see by many of the answers above and no doubt below) a lot of people get the subjunctive confused with the simple past.

You could say "if I was in your shoes" but it would imply a question about whether or not something had already happened ("if I was in your shoes I didn't realize it"), rather than an admission that that is not the case now.

So that was my grammar lesson. The fact remains that many many people (including native speakers) make those "mistakes".
Instead of "If I had known" they'll say "If I would have known" And instead of "If I were a rich man" they'll say "If I was a rich man." Presumably these will one day BE standard English, but for now they are not and you can congratulate yourself on speaking "better" than many native speakers.

PS: Kudos to the poster above who pointed out that "I'll have some tea if you would pour me some" IS correct. I think that might be an old-fashioned use of would, used in its original incarnation as the past tense of "will"

Answer 4

As one poster said, the use of "If I were..." seems to be used less and less these days. There's one other "forgotten" element to consider here.

Many people nowadays use constructions such as "If I would do such-and-such, then so-and-so would happen." Actually, "would" is incorrect here, because we have a double occurrence of the conditional--I get the impression people figured that if they could correctly say constructions such as "If I could...", then they could easily substitute "would". Instead, the construction is properly rendered as, "If I did do such-and-such, then so-and-so would happen," where "did" is in the subjunctive tense.

It would have been interesting to see what English would have been like today if it hadn't lost the grammatical inflections, case endings and grammatical gender it had a thousand years ago. Nowadays it has only small remnants of those, and the result of losing those inflections is that English has the same verb form for different tenses. For example, if I were to simply say, "I set," and you don't know the context, is that past, present, conditional or subjunctive? Therein lies the confusion.

Answer 5

You cannot say "If I would speak English like you" is wrong. It should be "If I spoke English like you". Your teacher is right: you cannot use "if" and "would" in the same sentence. You hear people say it in everyday speach, and so some people think that it is correct usage, but it is not correct.

The same goes for "if I were". This is the subjuncitve. People think that "if I was" is correct usage, because they hear it all the time, even on the television. But the correct is "if I were". If you are using "if I", you will ALWAYS use "were". This one is difficult for people because the subjunctive is usually the same conjugation as the present, but here it is different. The only other example I can think of where the subjunctive is different than the present is: "I demand that you BE on time".

Hope this helps. Please email me if you have any questions.

Answer 6

It's not as simple as that, even though the grammar books make it out to be that way.

Native speakers often use "would" in an "if" clause, as you have already mentioned. This is an example of the very complex way our verb system works. If you can't figure it out, you will always be safe with using "were" in the conditional.

Answer 7

You can use them together as others have just shown, but when learning English it is totally different than when it is your first language. We can manipulate it and play with it and change it which doesn't make it wrong it just makes it more difficult to learn. But it is the same if we are trying to learn French or some other language. We learn the correct way even if we are still using words and phrases the French have long forgotten about.

Answer 8

You are very right! English grammar rules are so complicated!

I'm not sure if I can explain the rules, but I can tell you which of those sentences are correct:
'If you would' - correct
'If I would' - incorrect
'If I would speak...' - incorrect (!)

When using 'If I...' you should say 'if I were to...' or 'if I could' (this could also be used with 'if you...').

Edit: I was wrong about this next bit, I've corrected it now though!
'were' is plural. It would be correct to say 'If I was in your shoes' because 'I' am one person. But if you were to say that 'they' or 'you' or 'we' were in somebody elses shoes you would be talking about more than one person (even if 'you' is one person, we still treat it as plural in English!)
so it would be correct to use 'were' (the plural).

I hope this helps, (messge me if it is unclear!)

Answer 9

If i would speak english was wrong, I think she meant if I could. If I was in your shoes is past tense. If I were in your shoes is present tense

Answer 10

"If" and "would" can be used in the same sentence, but I cannot explain why.
Examples:
If you would iron your clothes, you would not look so disheveled.
If I would eat fewer calories, I would lose weight.
If they would stop spending money foolishly, they would be able to afford to buy a house.

...and you're right. English is a difficult language to learn.