Hi everyone. I need some opinions on the following, please:
You would have a great time if you ________________ with us more often.
A. had gone out
B. went out
C. would have gone out
D. have gone out
I marked letter B, but the answer key says letter A is correct. I can’t agree with the answer key, but I might have overlooked something about the rules of conditional.
Thanks in advance for the help.
You are correct and the key is incorrect.
In order to have ‘A’ as the answer, the question should be: You would have had a great time if you ________________ with us more often.
• I think what we have here is a Mixed Conditional meaning to say: You didn’t go out with us and you’re not having great time now.
englishpage.com/conditional/ … ional.html
Hi MikeSilva,
I agree with you that it should be B and is an example of type 2 conditional where you are describing an unreal situation. Using A you need to say You would have had a great time if you had gone out with us more often
Hi Eugene, that idea could work in some very specific circumstances.
For example, imagine the listener were engaged in an activity which required some skill, training or practice in advance. His friends (including the speaker) have taken a number of opportunities to train for the activity and learn the required skills and procedures, however the listener did not go with them. Now he is engaged in the activity but is not enjoying it as he’s not really sure what he should be doing at any given point. The speaker might then use this mixed conditional to indicate that if he’d gone out on the training sessions with them he would be having a good time now.
However, as a test question such a scenario could not be anticipated, so I would agree that in this case the answer key is incorrect as explained.
A bit garbled that!! This is not a mixed conditional.
The paragraph wasn’t ‘garbled’, but it was complex. I’m sorry to hear you had difficulty following it.
Sarcasm indeed but I was referring to the thought behind the attempted justification. ‘Convoluted’ is perhaps a better description - but then that’s the sort of chap you are, too
No “justification” was needed. A suggestion was made and I didn’t wish to be as dismissive of it as you apparently are because in the right circumstances, regardless of your objections, it would be possible. I even explained why it wouldn’t be the case here, but as usual you were so eager to find fault you didn’t give that any consideration.
Sorry, old chap.
A nod is as good as a wink to a blind donkey.
Hi Bev,
Well, seems I’m the only one who misread the situation. I wonder how you know when to ‘mix it’, as in:
• “If she had been born in the United States, she wouldn’t need a visa to work here.
But she wasn’t born in the United States and she does need a visa now to work here”.
It’s still unclear to me why you can’t read the original in the past like: If you had gone out more often (which you didn’t), you would have a great time (now) and should read it only as a present unreal.
Perhaps you had to be born with it…
Accepting we are in the realm of ‘unreality’ ‘supposition’, by using a past perfect in one half of the ‘condition’, this has to e balanced by an earlier perfect form and not a present supposition.
… a nd such an earlier form is indicated in my earlier response, which does not involve a ‘present supposition’ but a possible scenario.
I don’t think we can afford to say there is little difference between ‘would have had’ and ‘would have’ as well as between ‘had gone out’ and ‘went out’. It is, therefore, better to use the conditional sentences in syntactical and semantic conformity with each of the three/four types which are normal in principle and practice though there might be many possibilities for justification.
I don’t think anyone is saying that.
Which idea?
What you have quoted does not indicate that anyone is saying
Wouldn’t this mean that there IS difference? It WOULD. So, it is a general observation (whether someone says so or not) that there IS difference. Now it is meaningless to comment further.
But you have quoted yourself, and no one else has said anything of the sort.
How very random.
Thought it was over?
• Now you have this: “This was not a cup game and the squad still included two young and inexperienced Academy players that otherwise would not have been included if we had our entire squad fully fit to be there. ……I honestly think we’d still have won if he kept playing for the full 90 minutes.” Written by “an Englishman (born and raised in Liverpool in the 80s)”. anfieldfamily.com/bournemouth-4-3-liverpool/
In a test, you’d expect a ‘classic’ Conditional III here, right? The author goes for mixing it instead, making the sentence a bit easier for reading. Would you consider this wrong? (I suspect he does know the usual way too.)