Dave's ESL Cafe's Student Discussion Forums

[fw]

Hello everyone.

I understand what sentence #1 below means. Now, does sentence #2 make sense? If it does, could you give me one example context where it works?
1. If you hadn't done it yesterday, it would have been good.
2. If you didn't do it yesterday, it would have been good.　

Best regards,
fw

[MrPedantic]

Hello Fw

The example is a little limited to find a context for; but similar structures are possible:

1. If you didn�t know exactly where the house was located, it would have been extremely hard to find it.

Here, both the past tense in the if-clause and the "would" in the main clause denote "the hypothetical": the sentence is a conjecture about the consequences of not knowing where the house was located.

Usually, in a structure of this kind, a past perfect tense is required in the if-clause:

1a. If you hadn't eaten that chicken sandwich, you wouldn't have been sick.

However, where the verb in the if-clause expresses a state, rather than an action, it's sometimes possible to use the simple past tense (as here).

It's also possible to use your original structure as follows:

2. If you didn't want to buy it, it would have been better to put it back on the shelf.

This is a little more complicated. The past tense in the if-clause represents a real event: the person didn't want to buy it, but did buy it. The "would" in the main clause, on the other hand, presents an unreal alternative conjecture: putting it back on the shelf, instead of buying it.

The difference from #1 lies in the use of "if"; the sentence really means:

2a. In view of the fact that you didn't want to buy it, it would have been better to put it back on the shelf.

MrP

[fw]

Thank you, Mrpedantic, for your detailed edxplantaion.

You wrote:
However, where the verb in the if-clause expresses a state, rather than an action, it's sometimes possible to use the simple past tense (as here).

This is a very interesting remark to me.

Let me ask you a quick question. What does �here� above refer to? Does it refer to:

�2. If you didn't want to buy it, it would have been better to put it back on the shelf.�?

fw

[MrPedantic]

Hello FW

I think I meant the sentence #1 in my post!

Sorry about the ambiguity (and the late reply).

MrP