Heidi
Is it ok? 'I will keep it to myself if I find a wallet on the road.' Thanks
Feb 9, 2017 12:57 PM
Answers · 5
Helen, is this a classroom task to practise conditionals with your students? If so, it would be more appropriate to use the finding a wallet scenario for second conditional practice i.e 'What would you do if you found a wallet in the street?'*. This is because it's a hypothetical and relatively unlikely situation - it's interesting to imagine what we'd do in this situation, but we aren't expecting it to happen. If you want to show your students how to use the first conditional, you should use a situation where there is, say, a 40% chance of this happening. This is used for more ordinary everyday situations. like 'What will you do if it rains tomorrow?' * The word 'street' is preferable to 'road', because 'road' is where the cars are. People are more likely to drop their wallet on the street than on the road. Finally, the expression 'keep it to myself' is confusing, because 'keep something to oneself' means to keep a secret. So it's not clear whether you mean 'I won't tell anyone' or not. It is also confusing to say 'it' before we know what 'it' refers to - that's why it's better to mention the wallet first. Using a second conditional, we could say 'If I found a wallet in the street, I would keep it for myself' or - more simply - ''If I found a wallet in the street, I would keep it'.
February 9, 2017
It depends what you mean, Helen: 1) I would keep it to myself if I found a wallet in the road = I will tell nobody about it. 2) I would keep it for myself if I found a wallet in the road = I will keep the wallet (and its contents, one assumes). 3) I would keep it, if I found a wallet in the road = I will keep the wallet etc n.b the phrase "keep (it/something) to yourself," means to tell nobody about something.
February 9, 2017
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