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If you are/be a parent, will you give your kid an allowance? I was thinking about this hypothetical situation and I turned out not knowing how to say it. What option is correct? If you are a parent, will you give your kid an allowance? If you be a parent, will you give your kid an allowance? Thank you, guys.

Answers · 5

2
If you were a parent (it's possible you are not) would you give your child an allowance? If + (past tense), would + Inf. If you are a parent (they very prabably are parents), do you give your child an allowance. If + (present), present. Try this quiz: https://forms.gle/k9oBkuEoV9yamvrG8
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In a sentence that has the form of <some imagined situation> then <some possible resulting action>, the <some imagined action> part should use the subjunctive and the <some possible resulting action> should use the conditional tense. The grammatical model is: If + <subjunctive> then + <conditional>. For example: If I were (subjunctive) the king then I would live (conditional) in a palace. Note that, especially in informal speech, it's often possible to omit the word 'then' without changing the meaning of the sentence, but the grammar remains the same. For example: ' If I were (subjunctive) the king I would live (conditional) in a palace', In your case, your sentence is a question, but it follows the same basic model. The 'if' part should use the subjunctive and the result part should use the conditional: 'If you were a parent, would you give your kid an allowance?' Note also that this kind of sentence describes a hypothetical situation. The person to whom you are addressing the question may not be a parent and may never become a parent. It's a hypothetical or imagined situation and that's why the subjunctive is used. On the other hand, if you were talking to expectant parents and you were asking about their real future plans (as opposed to a hypothetical situation), you would just use the indicative: 'When you become parents, are you going to give your kid an allowance?' By the way, just as a further example, if you look at the last sentence in the paragraph above (the sentence that starts with "On the other hand,...") you'll see that I wrote it using exactly the "if <subjunctive> then <conditional>" model: "... if you were talking (subjunctive)..., you would (conditional)...".
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"Kid" is fine for "child", although it is quite informal. Your if + present + future construction is also fine; this would apply if the child might get an allowance in the future, i.e. if you are talking to parents of young children. It's a "type 1 conditional". We also have a lot of "mixed conditionals", which allow a lot of flexibility. But the point of your question. I think, was whether to use "be" or"are". Back in the day, the strictly correct but now nearly archaic "be" would have been seen as correct. Today, though, it is much less used, and the straightforward "are" is really your only option. Hope this helps :) https://www.ef.co.uk/english-resources/english-grammar/type-1-conditional/
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Anni has also appropriately changed "kid" into "child". She corrected both sentences as neither is correct as written.

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