“The smaller the friend circle ‘would’ be, the cozier it ‘will’ get.”
Is the ‘will’ in the second clause correct here or should we say ‘would’ like the first clause to balance?
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Sign up to join this community“The smaller the friend circle ‘would’ be, the cozier it ‘will’ get.”
Is the ‘will’ in the second clause correct here or should we say ‘would’ like the first clause to balance?
Neither half works for me.
Not counter-factual:
The smaller the friend circle gets to be/becomes, the cosier it will get.
Counter-factual:
The smaller the friend circle got to be/became/were to be, the cosier it would get.
I am aware that some American speakers use would in counter-factual conditional ("If it would happen ... ") and I guess that those speakers could use would be in the counter-factual case here, but it sounds strange to me.
will is correct here. The first half is a hypothetic situation, hence would makes more sense there.