{"id":73084,"date":"2020-02-09T05:32:10","date_gmt":"2020-02-09T05:32:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/perfectyourenglish.com\/blog\/?p=73084"},"modified":"2020-02-09T05:32:10","modified_gmt":"2020-02-09T05:32:10","slug":"conversational-structures-with-if","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/perfectyourenglish.com\/blog\/conversational-structures-with-if\/","title":{"rendered":"Conversational Structures With If"},"content":{"rendered":"<h3>If \u2026 should; if \u2026 happen to<\/h3>\n<p>We use these structures to talk about events and situations that are very unlikely.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>If you should finish early, give me a ring.<\/li>\n<li>OR If you should happen to finish early, give me a ring.<\/li>\n<li>If he should be late, we will leave without him.<\/li>\n<li>OR If he should happen to be late, we will leave without him.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h3>If \u2026 was\/were to<\/h3>\n<p>This is another way of talking about unreal or imaginary future events.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>If the boss was\/were to come in now, we would be in real trouble. (=If the boss came in now, \u2026)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>This structure is also used to make a suggestion sound more polite.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>If you were to move your chair a bit, we could all sit down.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h3>If I were you \u2026<\/h3>\n<p>This structure is often used to give advice.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>If I were you, I would get that car serviced.<\/li>\n<li>If I was you \u2026 is also possible.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h3>If only<\/h3>\n<p>If only \u2026! means the same as I wish\u2026 We use If only \u2026! to say that we would like things to be different.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>If only I was better-looking.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>We can use were instead of was.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>If only I were better-looking.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Tenses<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Note that after If only \u2026! we use past tenses to talk about the present.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>If only I was\/were richer.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>To refer to the future we use would + infinitive.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>If only somebody would help!<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>To refer to the past, we use had + past participle.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>If only she hadn\u2019t told the police, everything would have been all right.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>If \u2026 should; if \u2026 happen to We use these structures to talk about events and situations that are very unlikely. If you should finish early, give me a ring. OR If you should&#46;&#46;&#46;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[486,1547,2028,2027],"class_list":["post-73084","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-speaking","tag-if","tag-if-i-were-you","tag-if-only","tag-if-structures"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/perfectyourenglish.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73084","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/perfectyourenglish.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/perfectyourenglish.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/perfectyourenglish.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/perfectyourenglish.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=73084"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/perfectyourenglish.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73084\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":73085,"href":"https:\/\/perfectyourenglish.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73084\/revisions\/73085"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/perfectyourenglish.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=73084"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/perfectyourenglish.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=73084"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/perfectyourenglish.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=73084"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}