Would it be grammatically correct if I would say: (see what I did there? :))
If I would be X >then< Y.
E.g.: If I would be born in US I would be happier.
("then" is redundant so I dropped it)
2
-
If I had been born in US I would be happier now.– Weather VaneCommented Oct 24, 2022 at 23:13
-
1Sometimes it's correct (If you would try harder, you would succeed) but most often it's not (If I would have more money, I would buy a fancier car).– Peter ShorCommented Oct 25, 2022 at 0:48
Add a comment
|
1 Answer
I’m definitely no grammar expert so take this with a grain of salt, but here’s what I think.
“If I would be born in US I would be happier” sounds grammatically incorrect to me because the first “would” is implying that being born in the US is something that’s theoretically possible for you in the future. But, obviously, that’s not the case. Some things that sound more natural to me would be:
- “If I was born in the US, I would be happier.”
- “If I had been born in the US, I would’ve been happier.”
(Please correct me if I’m wrong on any of these examples, though!)
As for your question itself, in “Would it be grammatically correct if I would say,” the first “would” sounds right because “saying” is something that you could do in the future, unlike being born. The second “would,” while I don’t think it’s necessarily wrong, sounds a bit off. “Would it be grammatically correct if I said” flows a little better in my mind. Maybe it’s just because having too many of the same word in a sentence makes it start sounding a bit choppy, though.
