would have

Have would been is ungrammatical. I'm not sure I understand what you mean. Perhaps: When I was eight, I think there was a building right there.

CB

I think there was a building right here when I was eight.

Thank you! I thought I wrote 'would have been', sorry.

Before I posted it, I saw on an online dictionary "I would have been three years old when the earthquake occurred" and I just wondered if my sentence was okay. But now it doesn't seem it was.

"I would have been three years old when the earthquake occurred."
I never came across that expression with 'would have PP' befor

People know when they were born and how old they are or were at a certain time. I find the conditional rather odd. I would simply say: I was three years old when the earthquake occurred.

CB

Anonymous"I would have been three years old when the earthquake occurred."

To my ear, this is

I was probably three years old when the earthquake occurred.

People don't usually stop in the middle of a conversation to compute the actual dates. That's like looking up the dates of the Crimean War on your Ipad just because someone m

When I was eight, a building have would been right there.
I would have been three years old when the earthquake occurred.

Both of these are possible. The meaning, as you have suggested, is connected with lack of absolute certainty.

The second is completely natural. The writer's thought processes could have been something like this: There was an earthquake whe

OK! Thank you very much for the helpful replies!