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Rikudo Posted 4 years ago
Grammar

Tenses and conditional form

Consider this scenario :

A few years ago, I was confused whether to buy a phone or not. After contemplating for a while, I ended up buying it because I can communicate with friends using it.


Now, I want to tell a story to my friend about this occasion. Will it be grammatically correct if I say :

"I thought that if I do not buy a phone, I cannot communicate with my friends. So I bought it."


Also, could you please explain why it is grammatically correct/incorrect if I use the 1st type of conditional form?

  

Top answer

I thought that if I did not buy a phone, I could not communicate with my friends. So I bought it. Better (more natural) I thought that if I bought a phone, I would be able to communicate with my friends.

— AlpheccaStars

  • I thought that if I did not buy a phone, I could not communicate with my friends.
  • So I bought it.
  • Better (more natural) I thought that if I bought a phone, I would be able to communicate with my friends.
  • So I bought it.
  • The backshifting of tenses in the sentences above is due to indirect speech.
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1 Answers
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I thought that if I did not buy a phone, I could not communicate with my friends. So I bought it.

Better (more natural)

I thought that if I bought a phone, I would be able to communicate with my friends. So
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