grammar quiz
Today I’ve tried a TOEFL Grammar Practice Quiz and this sentence I didn’t know to complete correctly. I need your help and an explanation too.
Q: __________, I would have returned it immediately.
If I knew that you wanted to read it
I had known that you wanted to read it
Had I known that you wanted to read it
First, I thought that it's about third conditional so my sentence would have been : "If I had known that you wanted to read it I would have returned it immediately" but there are only three variants here and one of them is correct but I don't understand why.
Search from various English teachers...
Answers · 5
4
The correct answer is: Had I known that you wanted to read it , I would have returned it immediately.
Because:
"Had I known" can mean the same as "If I had known"
Also:
"Were you" can mean the same as "If you were"
"Should you" can mean the same as "If you should"
:)
4
Had I known_________ is the right answer. It is called literary (rich) English. See, in normal English you can say that If I had known that_____ but when you want to be rich in language ex. poems in poems such alteration of words are allowed for the sake of rhyme.
2
Hello my dora ,long time to find you again in italki ,your welcome ,
First of all you can use both the last two answers but as the last one
"Had I known etc." is emphatic the correct one in Toefl terms is "If I had known...".
"If I had known you had wanted to read it. I would have returned it immediately." The real situation is that you did not know that I wanted to read it. This has to be followed by the past perfect. Now if you use "Had I known you had wanted to read it, I would have returned it immediately." you would be using an inversion which is used for emphasis. The 'if' is omitted. Both are correct but then the second one - the inversion - is slightly different in that it is more emphatic and more literary.
This is type 3 of conditional sentences known as "Impossible condition". The verb in the if-clause is in the past perfect tense; the verb in the main clause is in the perfect conditional.
If I had known of your arrival I should have met you (but I didn't know so I didn't meet you).
Here we know that the condition cannot be fulfilled because the sentence refers only to past events.
0
no need for the "if"because it is already understood if the sentence goes this way "Had i known that you wanted to read it_____________".
0
If I knew that you wanted to read it
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