Australia

[Jänchen Banänchen]

I want to go for one year to Australia after school.
Because i will improve my command of English and i love it to travel =)

It would be great if anyone can tell me more thinks about Australia and what i must consider if i travel to Australia.
Thanks

[Delfino]

I want to go to Australia for one year after I finished school.
Because I'd like to improve my English and I love it to travel =)

It would be great if you can tell me something about Australia
and especially what I have to consider if I travel to Australia.

About Australia from the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade
http://www.dfat.gov.au/geo/australia/

Wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australia

...

[Delfino]

After I finished school I want to go to Australia for one year
because I'd like to improve my English and I love it to travel =)

It would be a great help if you could tell me something about Australia.
I'm especially interested in what I have to consider if I travel through Australia.


About Australia from the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade
http://www.dfat.gov.au/geo/australia/

Wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australia

[Keswick]

Delfino, how often do you want to correct this text? Your first version is alright as it is.

[Delfino]

@Keswick

Ist es (auch) richtig, wenn man schreibt?
It would be a great help...

oder doch besser so?
It would be of great help...

[Keswick]

It would be of great help ist richtig.

It would be a great help ist eher Denglisch.

[Jänchen Banänchen]

Ich weiß mein Englisch ist nicht so gut... naja nobody's perfect
Trotzdem dankeschön für eure Verbesserungsvorschläge + Info ^^
Grüßlii =)

[Keswick]

Ich weiß mein Englisch ist nicht so gut... naja nobody's perfect

Das verlangt auch niemand .

[xxneroxx]

If I were you I'd really try to go to Australia. The country is awsome - the landscape as well as the cities and people. I've been to Australia twice and I loved it. :]

[Delfino]

The country is awesome.

The landscape as well as the cities and the people of this country are awesome.

[Nidan]

Check out http://australien-sehen.net/2011/11/20/ ... an-achten/

[Luxdux]

If I were you I'd really try to go to Australia. The country is awsome - the landscape as well as the cities and people. I've been to Australia twice and I loved it. :]

Is it correct to say "If I were you ...".

My suggestion is to say "If I was you ... " or "If I am you ..."
Am I right?

[tiorthan]

Is it correct to say "If I were you ...".

Yes.

My suggestion is to say "If I was you ... " or "If I am you ..."
Am I right?

"If I am you..." doesn't make any sense, as you'll see in a minute.
"If I was you..." is not correct either, but it's not as wrong as "am".
"If I were you..." the only solution that is perfectly correct all the time.

So why?

If you take a look at http://www.englisch-hilfen.de/grammar/if.htm you might understand why the first is wrong.

"If I am you..." would be understand as something that can come true at some point. But we know it can't. I can never be you. So if + present doesn't work here.

But the page also has Type II conditionals and the description could make you think that "If I was you" could be correct because, after all, the page tells you that conditionals type II are formed by using if + simple past.
Well, technically that's wrong. Type II conditionals do not use the simple past they use the past subjunctive form of which you may never have heard before.

The subjunctive mood is used to express unreality. English belongs to the Germanic languages and all Germanic languages have (or used to have) a subjunctive mood. You can still see it in German where we call it Konjunktiv I and Konjunktiv II. Let's have some examples:

Ich gehe - present
Ich ging - past
Ich ginge - past subjunctive (Konjunktiv II)

Don't let the name past subjunctive fool you, It can be used in the present as well. But the name indicates how the past subjunctive is formed by taking the past form of the verb and attaching an additional suffix -e.

Lets try a second example here.
Ich bin - present
Ich war - past
Ich wäre - past subjunctive

So what happened here? Didn't I just say we just add an -e to the past form and now it uses a completely different vowel? That, in fact, is a relic from the past. We call it an irregular form now, but there was some logic to the umlaut (yes, English uses the German word) and English originally had the same logic in Old English.

If you compare "I was" and "Ich war" you'll notice that they are really similar. Not without reason, because "was" and "war" share a common ancestor, they are the same word just handed down a bit differently through history. The same goes for "I were" and "Ich wäre". The past subjunctive "were" is not the same word as the plural were in "we were", but after a few hundred years of language development in which English got rid of a lot of different forms those two words ended up sounding exactly the same.

So why do grammar books say that type II conditionals are formed with if + simple present? The verb "be" is the only word in the English language that has a separate past subjunctive form "were". In all other words the subjunctive and the past are identical nowadays. But as a result of that history we still say "if I were..." and also "if he/she/it were" instead of "was".

And finally, I said it is not as wrong as using the present. What I meant by that is that you'll occasionally find English speakers who use the past "was" here. So far, however, the number of people who do that is still significantly less than the number of people who use "were" and it is considered non-standard in all variatons of English.

[Luxdux]

Thank you for your detailed answer, tiorthan.
I had been quite surprised, when I read the first explanations.
I am used to watch lots of Australian series and I am sure that the presenter often uses the construction "If I was you, I would .... "
However, you mentioned this at the end of your answer as well.

[tiorthan]

I am used to watching ...

After "be used to" you have to have a noun or an ing-form (which is a noun, basically).