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Mistake with English Subjunctive | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Questions About Your Target Languages |  | |
| drahcir Diglot Newbie United Kingdom Joined 5812 days ago 29 posts - 36 votes Speaks: English*, German | Message 1 of 9 25 June 2009 at 6:33pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Two of my friends at school both bilingual English/ German say things in English like:
It would be good if I would be there. Would you mind if I would eat it? We would have arrived earlier if we would have run here. Instead of; It would be good if I WERE there. Would you mind if I ATE it. We would have arrived earlier if we HAD run here. The way they say stuff in the subjunctive is similar to how the German subjunctive is formed so perhaps that is why they think it is correct eg. Ich hätte es dir gesagt, wenn ich es gewusst hätte. I would have told it to you, if I would have known it. (which should really be 'if I HAD known it.') Basically I've just been wondering whether this is correct English or not as it sounds very awkward to me but they insist it is correct. =] Edited by drahcir on 25 June 2009 at 6:46pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| GuardianJY Groupie United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5693 days ago 74 posts - 72 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: German, Italian, Swedish, French | Message 2 of 9 25 June 2009 at 6:38pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Well, as you likely know, it is very uncommon to say any of those "correct" forms in conversation. I personally would say the second sentence as "Would you mind if I were to eat it?" I believe the third sentence is correct. As for the first sentence, I would say that as "It would be good if I were to be there." I have no idea as to whether or not they are "correct" in the formal sense.
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| TheBiscuit Tetraglot Senior Member Mexico Joined 5931 days ago 532 posts - 619 votes Speaks: English*, French, Spanish, Italian Studies: German, Croatian | Message 3 of 9 25 June 2009 at 6:44pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Not correct English. Their bilingual brain tells them that if the pattern is correct in German why shouldn't it be so in English. They will take a lot of correcting as the error seems quite fossilised.
It's difficult for them to see that the past simple in English also functions as the subjunctive so they'll disregard it. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Jar-ptitsa Triglot Senior Member Belgium Joined 5906 days ago 980 posts - 1006 votes Speaks: French*, Dutch, German | Message 4 of 9 25 June 2009 at 7:21pm | IP Logged | |||||
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In my school the teacher call this structure "second conditional" not the subjunctive.
By coincidence we had a lesson this week, when we had some pictures of some funny things, for example a person was in a room with the technology for change the weather in all the world, and a lady had a 150th birthday party LOL!!! We had to construct some sentences about those pictures and use the 2nd conditional, for exmaple: If we had a machine for chose the weather, it would be sunny every day (If + past + would ) Edited by Jar-ptitsa on 25 June 2009 at 7:22pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Jar-ptitsa Triglot Senior Member Belgium Joined 5906 days ago 980 posts - 1006 votes Speaks: French*, Dutch, German | Message 6 of 9 25 June 2009 at 8:13pm | IP Logged | |||||
Yes, it's true, but in the picture there were some maps of countries and the machine would give those a sunny day, or rain etc. For sure it's not sunny every day where I live!! But today it's sunny :-) 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Bao Diglot Senior Member Germany tinyurl.com/pe4kqe5 Joined 5774 days ago 2256 posts - 4046 votes Speaks: German*, English Studies: French, Spanish, Japanese, Mandarin | Message 7 of 9 25 June 2009 at 9:04pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Exactly as you suspected. Spoken German actually uses conditional clauses frequently, and it is quite difficult for native German speakers to not directly translate the German structures to English because the words are all there. You just ... use them differently.
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| Cainntear Pentaglot Senior Member Scotland linguafrankly.blogsp Joined 6019 days ago 4399 posts - 7687 votes Speaks: Lowland Scots, English*, French, Spanish, Scottish Gaelic Studies: Catalan, Italian, German, Irish, Welsh | Message 8 of 9 25 June 2009 at 9:05pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Most people these days just say "if I was there" -- the "were" subjunctive is nearly dead.
But no, the German guys aren't speaking native English. I suspect their German speaking mothers talked too much English at home.... 1 person has voted this message useful |
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