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I have two sentences concerning the usage of the 2nd conditional with present tense verbs, and I'm concerned whether they convey what I want them to convey.

If I came over to your place tomorrow and saw that the front door is locked, I would never come to your house again.

If I came over to your place tomorrow and saw that the front door was locked, I would never come to your house again.

second sentence:

Would it be okay if I called you when I get home.

Would it be okay if I called you when I got home.

Are both the sentences in sentence 1 and 2 grammatically correct? Are there any differences in their meanings? Is it okay in these cases to not keep the tenses in harmony?

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  • 1.1 is marginal, because of saw. Change that to see and is becomes more viable, even though "if I come" is most viable with tomorrow.
    – TimR
    Oct 2, 2016 at 14:12

1 Answer 1

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There are three verbs in the if clause: "Came", "Saw" and "is/was". Since all are being viewed from the same perspective, they would all normally have the same tense:

Thus:

If I came over to your place tomorrow and saw that the front door was locked,

If I come over to your place tomorrow and see that the front door is locked,

If I were to come over to your place tomorrow and see that the front door were locked,

are possible. The last uses the "were subjunctive".

In the second example, you should use "when I get home". We use the present tense in when clauses to talk about the future. The time referred to by "when I get home" is in the future.

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