Language Overflow

8:04 PM

Like, how can I phrase it, if the coach says " you would have to be here for the games and any practices that you schedule, if you had the time to participate." it sounds as if I have already declined.

Catija

... Stoney already advised you to stop requiring everything to fit into the neat boxes they give intro learners to use... That's really not how English works.

quetchalcoatle

That is very correct. The question is, would you use "would" or "will" in that sentence?

Well, you also detected strangeness in it as I did, I was reasoning like heck and couldn't find the answer.

Catija

Would. Because it says "had". If it said "if you have the time" I would use either will or would.

But the part I find strange isn't the will/would issue... it's the weirdness of why someone would schedule a practice when they're joining a team... they'd be attending the scheduled practices.

quetchalcoatle

Oh, I'm not joining a team. I'm their coach, and thought it easier to explain the situation to say I made the team.

But I guess it failed.

Catija

Then why are you saying "you"... you're talking to the player. You should be saying "you would have to be here for the games and any practices that I schedule".

That is what is odd about the sentence to me.

quetchalcoatle

8:16 PM

No. It was from the man in charge of the coaches. Well, it is quite hard to explain every single detail of it when posting a question. The situation was, they said I am the coach now, and I asked them what do I have to do, and they said " you will have to come here for the practices you schdule. "

Catija

Ah, that makes more sense. In that case, the phrasing is fine. It was unclear that you were the one being spoken to. I thought that you were the one doing the speaking. - If you are the coach, then you will have to come to the practices. If you are considering being the coach, then one of the conditions of that is that you would have to come to the practices.

Does that help?

quetchalcoatle

Yes, quite so. I think I will have to explain the situation and the context clearer when posting a question.

One more thing though. I've seen people make such fuss about the matching modality of would with past tense and will with present tense. But you said above that if it is "if you have the time" (which uses present tense in conditional) you will use "will or would". Would you do it in every case that a present tense is used in conditional, I mean using would and will interchangeably?

Catija

I can't think of every case... but I would say that it depends on how nice I'm trying to be. "Would" when making a request of someone sounds less like a command.

I think...

I've been overthinking it now and my head is swimmy. Do you have times where you know a word is spelled correctly but you've been looking at it for so long that it just seems off somehow? That's where I am right now... sorry.

quetchalcoatle

Sorry. Wrote something else.

I know that feeling too. At some point everything becomes vague and it feels like it is not real.

Maybe I will post a question about the second question I asked you. Conditionals is such a hard field. I think it is more about the varying situations and kind of set uses rather than a delicately defined grammatical structure. Thank you!

Catija

8:33 PM

Sure. :)

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