Dave's ESL Cafe's Student Discussion Forums

[www0935]

The following is my question:

In this sentence, "If human beings [u]don't awake[/u], we are afraid that this tragedy will be inevitable.",

can I put it this way, "If human beings [u]aren't awake[/u], we are afraid that this tragedy will be inevitable."?

Thanks a lot.

[pugachevV]

You can put it that way but the meaning is changed. If you use, "aren't awake" it means if they aren't awake now. If you use "If they don't awake", it means, if they don't wake up in the future.
In practical terms it doesn't make any difference to what you want to say, but you should be aware of the difference.
Most people would use "wake up" rather than "awake", incidentally.