{"id":240,"date":"2009-04-04T19:25:58","date_gmt":"2009-04-05T01:25:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.grammarbook.com\/blog\/?p=240"},"modified":"2021-02-03T17:45:31","modified_gmt":"2021-02-03T23:45:31","slug":"if-i-would-have-vs-if-i-had","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.grammarbook.com\/blog\/verbs\/if-i-would-have-vs-if-i-had\/","title":{"rendered":"If I Would Have<\/em> vs. If I Had<\/em>"},"content":{"rendered":"

When talking about something that didn’t happen in the past, many English speakers use the conditional perfect (if I would have done) when they should be using the past perfect (if I had done).<\/p>\n

For example, you find out that your brother saw a movie yesterday. You would have liked to see it too, but you hadn’t known he was going. To express this, you can use an if-then<\/em> clause. The correct way to say this is with the past perfect in the “if” clause, and the conditional perfect in the “then” clause:<\/p>\n

Correct:<\/strong> If I had known that you were going to the movies, [then] I would have gone too.<\/em><\/p>\n

The conditional perfect can only go in the “then” clause — it is grammatically incorrect to use the conditional perfect in the “if” clause:<\/p>\n

Incorrect:<\/strong> If I would have known that you were going to the movies, I would have gone too.<\/em><\/p>\n

More examples:<\/p>\n

Correct:<\/strong> If I had gotten paid, we could have traveled together.<\/em>
\nCorrect:<\/strong> Had I gotten paid, we could have traveled together.<\/em><\/p>\n

Incorrect:<\/strong> If I would have gotten paid, we could have traveled together.<\/em><\/p>\n

Correct:<\/strong> If you had asked me, I could have helped you.<\/em>
\nCorrect:<\/strong> Had you asked me, I could have helped you.<\/em><\/p>\n

Incorrect:<\/strong> If you would have asked me, I could have helped you.<\/em><\/p>\n

The same mistake occurs with the verb “wish.” You can’t use the conditional perfect when wishing something had happened; you again need the past perfect.<\/p>\n

Correct: <\/strong>I wish I had known.<\/em><\/p>\n

Incorrect:<\/strong> I wish I would have known.<\/em><\/p>\n

Correct:<\/strong> I wish you had told me.<\/em><\/p>\n

Incorrect:<\/strong> I wish you would have told me.<\/em><\/p>\n

Correct:<\/strong> We wish they had been honest.<\/em><\/p>\n

Incorrect:<\/strong> We wish they would have been honest.<\/em><\/p>\n

Pop Quiz<\/strong>
\nChoose A or B.<\/strong><\/p>\n

1A. If I would have known you were sick, I could have brought you some meals.
\n1B. If I had known you were sick, I could have brought you some meals.<\/p>\n

2A. If you had explained the objective, I could have completed the assignment sooner.
\n2B. If you would have explained the objective, I could have completed the assignment sooner.<\/p>\n

3A. I wish it would have gone differently.
\n3B. I wish it had gone differently.<\/p>\n

4A. We wish the team had scored more goals.
\n4B. We wish the team would have scored more goals.<\/p>\n

Pop Quiz Answers<\/strong><\/p>\n

1B. If I had known you were sick, I could have brought you some meals.
\n2A. If you had explained the objective, I could have completed the assignment sooner.
\n3B. I wish it had gone differently.
\n4A. We wish the team had scored more goals.<\/p>\n

Reprinted with permission by Editor Laura Lawless, https:\/\/www.lawlessenglish.com\/<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When talking about something that didn’t happen in the past, many English speakers use the conditional perfect (if I would have done) when they should be using the past perfect (if I had done). For example, you find out that your brother saw a movie yesterday. You would have liked to see it too, but […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-240","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-verbs"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.grammarbook.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/240"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.grammarbook.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.grammarbook.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.grammarbook.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.grammarbook.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=240"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.grammarbook.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/240\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.grammarbook.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=240"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.grammarbook.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=240"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.grammarbook.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=240"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}