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I ran into this sentence while watching a TV show. Context: One person tried to call another person, but the latter didn't answer. So the first person came to the other and said as mentioned above.

In my understanding it is supposed to be a type of mixed conditional that refering to an unreal past condition (past perfect) and the probable result in the present (present conditional). With this said, the sentence should've been as follows: "If you had answered your phone, you would know.. ".

Pavel Gulyaev
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  • As a native speaker, this present-after-past-perfect sounds awkward/sloppy, but in an unsurprising way. Yet: If you had read the textbook, you would know the answers to the test questions sounds less so. – Spencer Nov 09 '22 at 23:04
  • Isn't this "If you had read the textbook, you would have known" the more correct version? – banuyayi Nov 10 '22 at 05:37
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    An answer to a similar question contains this extract from Practical English Usage: "Conditional 'would' is sometimes used in both clauses of an if-sentence. This is very informal, and is not usually written. It is common in spoken American English." https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/122198/use-of-would-for-subjunctive-phrases – Shoe Nov 10 '22 at 08:03

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