Today we've got another video in our series. Two minute grammar where you take two minutes
from your busy lives to study some English grammar. And today we're going to look at the
when to use IF and when to use WHETHER in a sentence. If you're one of those people
that says no, no I never use WHETHER I always use IF then you should definitely be watching
this video. Shall we do it? Let's go
When talking about conditionals we always
use IF. "If I win the lottery, I'll buy a boat"
"If I had known you were coming I would have baked you a cake "
so always IF for conditionals So we prefer to use WHETHER where there is
a choice with OR... "I can't decide whether to bake a chocolate
cake or a carrot cake." (of course we'll understand if you use IF but WHETHER is preferred especially
when you are writing) "I haven't made up my mind whether or not
to buy this watch" Even if there isn't an OR in the sentence
if it's implied we still use WHETHER "I don't know whether to go into work today."
There are also a couple tricks to remember
when you are not sure You should always use WHETHER and not IF after
prepositions "I'm thinking about whether I should dye my
hair blue. " "You haven't answered the question of whether
you will help us pay for the farm. " Before an infinitive always use WHETHER
"I haven't yet decided whether to make them an offer. "
"I'm not sure whether to tell her the truth. "
And finally if we are using indirect questions and some expressions used to indicate doubt
we can use either IF or WHETHER. both are correct without any change of meaning.
"He asked me if I would sing him a song" " he asked whether I would sing him a song". Both
are correct. "I don't know if (or whether) I can come tomorrow."
but remember the rule about before and infintive
still and after a preposition still apply "I don't know whether to come or not"...here
you must use WHETHER There you are ... that was about 2 minutes?
You can tell me whether you liked that or
not in the comments. Thank you for watching stay mellow and see you in the next video