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Mitsuo23 Posted 15 years ago
Grammar

With or without "if"

Hi,

I'll quote a sentence here:

"I feel like I'm not sure I should be saying it." and now why there's no "if"? Sometimes I see this type of usage but I don't know when I need to put if and when it's OK without if.

Would you explain it?

Thanks,
M
  

Top answer

This is quite a difficult question to answer and I think the answer may lie in the verb tense. ) tense you would say I'm not sure I should be doing/saying/talking etc. But then if you change the tense to the future conditional then the use of "if" comes into play.

— Ian_G

  • This is quite a difficult question to answer and I think the answer may lie in the verb tense.
  • ) tense you would say I'm not sure I should be doing/saying/talking etc.
  • But then if you change the tense to the future conditional then the use of "if" comes into play.
  • "If" suggests that you do not know if something will happen or not.
  • So you get "I 'm not sure if I should say it.
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6 Answers
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This is quite a difficult question to answer and I think the answer may lie in the verb tense. So using the present (subjunctive?) tense you would say I'm not sure I should be doing/saying/talking etc. But then if you change the tense to the future conditional then the use of "if" comes into play. "If" suggests that you do not know if something will happen or not. So you get "I 'm not sure
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mitsuwao23"I feel like I'm not sure [that] I should be saying it."
When that is used as a conjunction, it can usually be left out. There's no "if" in the sentence.

CB
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Thank you for the reply, CB.

So, my question goes like, when can I use the conjunction "that" instead of "if"?
What I was assuming is, you use "if" when there's only two choice, a yes or a no.
For example:

a) I don't know that what color I should use to paint the wall.
I'm fine with this, but.

b) I don't know that he's coming to the party.
Is this corr
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Emotion: thinking Hm... I think we look at this from different angles. Maybe your native language leads you to your angle and approach and mine
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Ok, I understood. Maybe that's what Ian_G was also saying. I should've paid more attention to him, too.

Anyway, thank you for taking your time.
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mitsuwao23I don't know that he's coming to the party.
I don't know if he's coming to the party = I don't know the answer to the question, "Is he coming to the party?"

I don't know that he's coming to the party ~ (idiom) I can't guarantee that he's coming to the party ~ I can't be sure that he's coming to the party ~ I can't say for sure that he's co
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