Conditional use issue

Question

Which one is correct? If they are both correct, when do we use each of them and which conditional would fit better in the context?

Peter told me that if I bought this car we would have no money at all.
Peter told me that if I buy this car we will have no money at all.

Grammarwannabe · Accepted Answer

With conditionals we have a few different kinds:

always true-- here we use present tense

if it rains, we my knee hurts

has the possibility of being true -- if one situation is met, the other will happen. we use present and "will"

If it gets too late, I will ask you to drive me home
If it rains, I won't go to the movies

the next is often called an unreal conditional, because it talks about something that is not likely to happen -- it uses the past tense and "would" (originally, we only used "were" if we were using the be verb...However, American usage is beginning to use the regular past tense)

If I were rich, I would quit this job

conditionals about the past -- use past perfec and "would have..."

If I had known you were coming, I would have made a cake

I know it's long...I hope it helps

Grammarwannabe · Answer

sorry...
so in this case, I would say..."if I buy this car..."

CalifJim · Answer

curiosity100Peter told me that if I bought this car we would have no money at all.Peter told me that if I buy this car we will have no money at all.

If you are already in a situation where you are able to point to the car (in words) by using "this car", you are in a real situation. Use "If I buy ...".

If Peter was only imagining buying a car, with no real prospects in mind, it might be better to use this:

Peter told me that if I bought a car, we would have no money at all.
_______

As an aside, usually it would be:

Peter told me that if we ..., we ... no money left (at all).

Or:

Peter told me that if I ..., I ... no money left (at all).

CJ

Curiosity100 · Answer

Thanks a lot, but I still have a question... Isn't "Peter told me..." supposed to introduce reported speech? In this case, wouldn't we use the past forms of "buy" and "will"?

If I just had this sentence: "If I buy this car we will have no money at all." it would make perfect sense, but we've got "Peter told me..." before it, so shouldn't we say "Peter told me that if I bought this car we would have no money at all."? Shouldn't we replace "buy" and "will" with "bought" and "would"?

Sorry for asking so many questions...but I'm too curious

Conditional use issue

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