Question about English grammar. If I were? If I was??

Question

I have a question about English grammar.

Which sentences do you use in everday conversations??

1 If I were a bird , I could fly.
2.If I was a bird, I could fly.

I think I were sentence is correct English grammar.
But Some people often use If I was sentence.
If I were is kind of idiomatic sentence, isn't it??

What do you think about it?????????

Plase, tell me your idea.

Answer 1

Languages are living entities, and as such are always changing.
Also, there is what is called "descriptive grammar" and "presciptive grammar."

In traditional standard English, the correct (prescriptive grammar) form of your question would be "If I were a bird, I could fly." This is because one used the past subjunctive ("contrary to fact") for such situations.

Nowadays a lot of people use "If I was a bird...". I think it is because most of the past subjunctive forms are identical (in English) with the simple past, and people have regularized a form that was, historically, not regular. In descriptive grammar, it is what is, what people say, without regard to "correctness."

To be honest with you, I prefer the "If I were..." form, but many people use the "If I was..." form.

Answer 2

As all have noted, "were" is correct in this case. It is the "subjunctive" mood, used for situations contrary to fact, wishes and such. For 'real' situations you use the ordinary "indicative" --"I am" and "I was"

But many English speakers do not know much about the subjunctive, mainly because it does not have that many distinctive forms -- mostly the forms of "be" and the special modal forms of could, would, should.

A couple of tricks some people use to keep them straight:

"I was" is PAST tense -- when you say "If I was a bird" you most often are NOT talking about the past, but about an imaginary situation in the PRESENT. (For the past hypothetical you'd use "If I had been").

The song titles "If I Were a Rich Man" and "If I Were King of the Forest" may help.

As for "idiomatic" -- no, "were" is simply the grammatically correct form for Standard English. I'd suggest ALWAYS using it, but not fussing too much if others get it wrong.

Answer 3

It is correct to say "If I were" because being a bird is something you will never actually do. Many people say "If I was", and we all know what is meant. However, this does not make it grammatically correct.
The rest of your sentence would be better written as "I would be able to fly".
I wouldn't call the expression idiomatic. It is a use of the subjunctive form, as many respondents have already noted, and is used in other languages as well.

Answer 4

The first sentence is an example of the English subjunctive, a form that really isn't used anymore by very many people. I don't even think it gets taught in high school anymore. It is not an archaic or obsolete form, however, and so is still technically correct. It's not idiomatic. The subjunctive form still survives in other languages. I know Spanish uses it.

Answer 5

English Grammar If I Were

Answer 6

Personally,i'd rather go with the "If I were a bird , I could fly.
" type........the "If I was ..." should rather end in something like "I would be able to fly" or so,and even then it sounds sort of of wrongish to me.

Lol.........as far as some people are concerned,you could find a small bunch of folks doing almost anything and everything,in all ways imaginable, (some not even so!) in turn making wrong or right absolutely immaterial.

I'm not sure if its idiomatic or not,but its sort of conventional as such.

Hope that helps

Answer 7

I would use 1 in my spoken and written English although I know 2 is more commonly used.

This is the 2nd type of hypothesis structure in English, that is-

If I(or any personal pronouns) were (or if other verbs, in simple past tense)..., ...(verbs or modal verbs in past tense)...

The 2nd type of hypothesis is used in situation where you're making a statement which is not quite likely to happen, the use of past tense is compulsory (or the verbs are conjugated in past tense in the first subclause, but it's more like subjunctive) Hence 'were'

However many people now think 'I' doesn't go with 'were' and they might overlook the hypothesis sentence structure, plus "I" usually goes with 'was' - when it comes to colloquial speech it becomes the 2nd example.

Since both are acceptable you just choose whichever you want. But I'm a linguistic purist I stick with the first one.

Answer 8

"Were" is the subjunctive, as noted above, and is technically correct here.
"Was" is often used in these types of sentences, but, as also noted above, generally in "less impossible" contexts. I don't know if that has always been the case.

Um, in everyday conversations I don't speculate about being a bird...

People tend to say "If I were you, I would" [really impossible] but "If I was rich, I would..." [not true, but possible]. So for the bird example, "were" is more likely.

Answer 9

If I were to use phrase number one(!) people might think I am a bit of a snob or a pedant, which is a shame as it's actually correct, if more or less obsolete nowadays.

Answer 10

strictly speaking, "if I were". "If I was" is idiomatic, but it's used all the time. Of course, "all the time" is idiomatic, it should be "quite a bit". And "quite a bit" is idiomatic...