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Evil Giraffe · Joined: 05 Feb 2003 Posts: 32 Location: Kofu, Japan

How do you explain the difference in these two sentences?

"If you go to Tokyo tomorrow, I'll go with you."
"If you will go to Tokyo tomorrow, I'll go with you."

I am helping a girl with her English conversation and am having much trouble explaining why, under normal circumstances, you wouldn't use the "will" in the second sentece. To me putting that "will" in there implies a kind of "please...will you go" type request. But I am sure my explanation is lacking. Any good insights?

Also, if you can point me to an online grammar help type webiste that would be wonderful.

PAULH · Joined: 28 Jan 2003 Posts: 4672 Location: Western Japan

Evil Giraffe · Joined: 05 Feb 2003 Posts: 32 Location: Kofu, Japan

hmmmm....only one response. makes me think that it is a tough question.

anyway, thanks paulh, that's helps a little.

PAULH · Joined: 28 Jan 2003 Posts: 4672 Location: Western Japan

Personally I dont really think that is really a sentence that a native speaker would ordinarily use, with "will" in both clauses.

Is this something that a student showed you out of their grammar textbooks (often written by non-native speakers for grammatical effect)

I can not really see myself saying "If you will go.....". Just seems a bit odd to me.

lajzar · Joined: 09 Feb 2003 Posts: 647 Location: Saitama-ken, Japan

Its just one of those things that just is. There isnt any particular reason why grammar works the way it does. No one sat down and decided that "will" wouldnt be used in conditional clauses.

You may as well ask why French doesn't have a separate word for "drop", or Japanese has at least 4 different words for "give" depending on relative social levels (and these can be inflected differently depending on politeness level...), or why Maltese attaches possessive pronouns directly to some nouns, but not others. No reason. It just is.

azarashi sushi · Joined: 23 Jan 2003 Posts: 562 Location: Shinjuku

Mark · Joined: 23 Jan 2003 Posts: 500 Location: Tokyo, Japan

Well, I think that the grammar explanation given before is pretty good.

We just use certain forms to express conditionality. "Will" implies a more definite idea.

Someone could say,

"Well, if he'll do it, then I'll do it too."

This isn't really a conditional sentence. In a conditional sentence, we basically don't know if the "if" clause is true. If it is true, then the other will apply. In my sentence above, I'm assuming that I've been told that someone has done something. In other words, it's assumed that the "if" clause is true. Although it would probably be more natural to say, "If he's gonna do it, then I'll do it, too" because "was going to" tends to be more definite (in most situations) than "will".

It's kind of an adaption of the conditional form, I think. I haven't consulted a grammar book, but I'm sure this kind of sentence is in there somewhere. There's probably a name for it, but I don't know it offhand.

Cheers,

Mark

lajzar · Joined: 09 Feb 2003 Posts: 647 Location: Saitama-ken, Japan

A long time ago, in a language far away, yet somehoe vaguely related to modern English, "will" and "want" were exactly the same word. This conditional form of "will" is simply a vestigial remainder of this form.

That is the truth. But it is far more useful to say it just is. It raises fewer questions, and answers the original just as effectively in terms of language learning.

Mark · Joined: 23 Jan 2003 Posts: 500 Location: Tokyo, Japan

markle · Joined: 17 Jan 2003 Posts: 1316 Location: Out of Japan

lajzar · Joined: 09 Feb 2003 Posts: 647 Location: Saitama-ken, Japan

Mark · Joined: 23 Jan 2003 Posts: 500 Location: Tokyo, Japan

lajzar · Joined: 09 Feb 2003 Posts: 647 Location: Saitama-ken, Japan

Personally, I would tell them that there is a reason, but it won't help them undestand the pattern. Only if there were already at ease with these patterns, resaonably fluent generally, and interested in language archaeology, would I expand any explanation further. For most, I'd merely say this is the pattern, and that there isn't any helpful explanation of why it is so.

Mark · Joined: 23 Jan 2003 Posts: 500 Location: Tokyo, Japan

VanKen · Joined: 29 Oct 2003 Posts: 139 Location: Calgary, AB Canada

Boys and girls! Conditionals have rules and the rules are quite simple to explain to a student.

There are 3 basic type of conditional sentences. The time marker goes with the main clause of each sentence.

1. first conditional (sometimes called the REAL conditional) - for real events and real consequences. Use the present tense to explain the event, and the future tense in the main clause to indicate that the real event hasn't happened yet.

Example: "If you go to Tokyo (as you are planning to do), I will go with you."

2. second conditional (sometimes called the UNREAL conditional)- for imaginary situations with imaginary consequences. Use the simple past tense to describe the situation, and the modal "would" (or sometimes could or should, etc.) in the main clause to indicate that the consequences are imaginary. Note: using the past tense here does NOT indicate past time.

Example: "If you went to Tokyo (but you aren't going there), I would go with you."

More tentatively or more politely, you can write:

"If you were to go to Tokyo, I would go with you."

3. third conditional - for purely hypothetical/imaginary situations with hypothetical consequences. Use the past perfect to describe the hypothetical situation and the present perfect in the main clause.

Example: "If you had gone to Tokyo by train (but it's hypothetical because you are already there), I would have gone with you.

It might be correct to say "If you'll go to Tokyo, I'll go with you" might be correct, but it certainly isn't a conditional sentence. As Mark said in his post, this could be used when two parties are trying to agree on something.

I hope that this explanation clears up the confusion. Sorry if it is so long.