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Chan-Seung Lee
Joined: 03 Dec 2005
Posts: 1032
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 Posted: Sat Jun 24, 2006 2:40 am Post subject: If it were not for white lies, society would ..... |
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1)If it were not for white lies, society would be in an extremely uncomfortable situation.
2)If you should fail in the entrance examination, would you try it again next year?
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In the above examples, can 'would' be replaced with 'will'?
If so, which one is more common among native speaker these days, 'will' or 'would'?
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CP
Joined: 12 Jun 2006
Posts: 2875
Location: California
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| Posted: Sat Jun 24, 2006 9:39 am Post subject: |
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I think you need "would" in sentence 1 because you are proposing something contrary to fact as the premise.
"Would" is also better in sentence 2, and is proper English, but in the U.S., most people would not use the "should" construction. In conversation and in writing, you might more likely hear / see it expressed as:
"If you fail the entrance examination, will you try it again next year?"
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