Conditionals... I am struggling with conditionals. Please, check the second sentence. Is it right? or should I use another conditional here? The book Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone was subm

Yevgeniya

Conditionals... I am struggling with conditionals. Please, check the second sentence. Is it right? or should I use another conditional here? The book Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone was submitted to twelve publishing houses, all of which rejected the manuscript. If Joanne Rowling had given up trying to publish her novel, the world would have never known it.

Nov 29, 2015 8:27 PM

Answers · 4

The conditional is fine there.

November 29, 2015

In British English, adverbs of time such as 'never', 'always', 'sometimes' and 'often' usually go before the main verb or between the auxiliary verb and the infinitive that follows it (in this case the perfect infinitive 'have known'). So - in the UK - 'would never have known' sounds much more natural than 'would have never known'.

December 3, 2015

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