1

What is the difference between these two sentences?

  1. If he asked me, I would/'d stay.
  2. If he had/'d asked me, I would/'d have stayed.

I think they both are conveying the same meaning, That is a counterfactual condition in the past.

Source: Textbook (Commom mistakes in English, Longman)

Improve this question

2 Answers 2

Reset to default
2

They do not convey the same meaning.

  1. He hasn't asked me yet, but he may do so.

  2. He might have asked me (on an earlier occasion), but he didn't.

Improve this answer
7
  • 1
    "If he asks me, I will/'ll stay" also conveys he hasn't asked me yet, but he may do so. Then what is the difference between this one and 1st one (If he asked me, I would/'d stay)?
    – Navdeep Singh
    Commented Jan 23, 2021 at 15:48
  • 1
    'If he asks me' - (it's quite likely that he will). 'If he asked me' has the same sense as 'If he were to ask me' - it makes his asking you a bit more hypothetical (you are not at all sure that he will).
    – Kate Bunting
    Commented Jan 23, 2021 at 17:31
  • I just can't digest the fact that "if he asked me" points at some future possibility. i.e. if this happen, then [that will happen] and the outcome is in past
    – Navdeep Singh
    Commented Jan 24, 2021 at 1:59
  • 1
    "If I study, I will pass the exam" - the speaker intends to study hard. "If I studied, I would pass the exam" could be followed by "...but I'm not going to bother, because passing that exam wouldn't really help me in my career."
    – Kate Bunting
    Commented Jan 24, 2021 at 9:02
  • 1
    No - if it had, it would be I would have passed.
    – Kate Bunting
    Commented Jan 24, 2021 at 10:47
0

Subjunctive mood is the issue involved. Both of those sentences could have been written in the subjunctive mood as such:
If he were to have asked me, then I would have stayed.

However, for at least 20 years, I've noticed that native English speakers sometimes do not use the subjunctive mood in both informal, and formal, speech. So, it is fair to say that not using subjunctive mood is not incorrect. Rather, the subjunctive mood is exiting the language.

Myself, a native speaker who chooses to use subjunctive mood, I sort of "auto-correct" both these sentences into the same subjunctive mood sentence that I wrote above. Thus they mean the same thing to me:
If he asked me, I would/'d stay.
If he had/'d asked me, I would/'d have stayed.

Improve this answer
0

You must log in to answer this question.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged .