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I have a question - is it acceptable to write a sentence "If I would have won lottery, I would buy a car!"? Is it even correct? Thank you very much!

user21820
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Štěpán Víteček
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1 Answers1

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It is not even possible to have a sentence of the form "If I would have done X, then Y.". This is because "would have" denotes that the speaker thinks the event would have occurred in the past (under the specified circumstances). Hence no one says such a sentence because it would denote something like "If I think that I would have done X, then Y.", but clearly one knows whether one had or had not done X, and so should not utter a conditional sentence where the condition involves whether one thinks one had done X. Instead one simply says "If I had done X, then Y.", because the simple past tense does not denote what the speaker thinks but rather what is the actual fact.

user21820
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  • "You say that I would have won the lottery if I had bought twice as many tickets, 200 rather than 100. If I would have won the lottery if I had bought 200 tickets, then of course I regret the fact that I didn't. But I wasn't to know. And I'm not even sure I believe your figures." – Edwin Ashworth Oct 04 '16 at 10:00
  • @EdwinAshworth: That does not count at all, because it is not of the form I stated! My form is "If I would have done X, then Y.". Yours is "If ( I would have done X if I had done W ), then Y." and the inner clause is itself a conditional statement with equivalent form "If I had done W then I would have done X.", which obeys my explanation. – user21820 Oct 04 '16 at 12:39
  • 'It is not even possible to have a sentence beginning with "If I would have won ..." comes before your deduction, which appears in a later sentence, and is thus a general statement (and incorrect). – Edwin Ashworth Oct 04 '16 at 19:06
  • @EdwinAshworth: I value precision, and I have edited my answer to the intended meaning, but I do not think it was so unclear as to deserve a downvote... – user21820 Oct 06 '16 at 07:46
  • Perhaps the downvote is because of an answer given to a question that, if I remember correctly, was already flagged as a possible duplicate. – Edwin Ashworth Oct 06 '16 at 10:38
  • @EdwinAshworth: Well I answered it half an hour before it got closed. And the downvote came a few minutes before your comment, which was much later. Were you really not the downvoter? – user21820 Oct 06 '16 at 15:56