Thread: If + would?

Hello my dear English speaking friends,

It's been a while since I asked for your help. Anyway, let's get down to business, shall we?

Over the course of the last few months I developed an almost obsessive craving to say things like:

If you would do this for me...
If you'd just listen to me...
If you wouldn't mind... (I'm pretty sure this one is a set phrase though.)

Naturally I started to wonder where this craving had come from. When I was making my very first steps learning English, I learned that "if clauses" acted differently in English than they did in Russian. For one thing you don't combine if and will, for another you don't sully an already conditional clause with any other conditional word, like would for this matter. Anyway, that was so very long ago that I simply could be misremembering things here.

Anyhow, I decided to pay more attention to what kind of grammar English speakers use. Well, maybe "more" is an innapropriate word here, because I stopped caring about such things long ago. So while doing just that I immediately heared a woman say this to her male friend:

If you would just speak to him for me, I would be very greatful.

Finally, to the question at hand:

Is it actually normal to combine if and would in the same close? If it is, then what difference would thes two sentences have?

If you would just speak to him for me...
If you spoke to him for me...

Thanks ahead of time guys. Sorry for making it this long.

I hate to bump up this thread like this, but I really expected someone to reply here.

In the text

"So while doing just that I immediately heared a woman say this to her male friend:"

"heared" should be "heard".

As for:

"Is it actually normal to combine if and would in the same close? If it is, then what difference would these two sentences have?

If you would just speak to him for me...
If you spoke to him for me..."

I really don't see much of a difference except for a subtle one.

Scott

Originally Posted by fortheether

"So while doing just that I immediately heared a woman say this to her male friend:"

"heared" should be "heard".

I don't know how that happened. I swear

As for the subtle difference you mentioned. It'd be great if you could elaborate on it a bit.

The first is asking stronger then the second. Maybe more context would help.

Scott

Originally Posted by iCake

I don't know how that happened. I swear

As for the subtle difference you mentioned. It'd be great if you could elaborate on it a bit.

Is it actually normal to combine if and would in the same clause? If it is, then what difference would these two sentences have?

If you would just speak to him for me...
If you spoke to him for me...

The first sentence could have different meanings based on tone. It could express frustration in some way:
If you could just speak to him for me, we could get this thing finally settled!
Having "just" there is what gives the sentence emphasis. Of course the context here is sells it entirely. It's also far more common to hear it this way, regardless of the context.

As for the second sentence, it gives the feeling of a "what-if" situation.
If you spoke to him for me, then we might come to a conclusion.
However, it also sounds more demanding than the latter.