if it rains/it's raining

L

Lievo

Member
Finnish
Hello.

1) If it rains tomorrow I'll take my umbrella.
2) If it's raining tomorrow I'll take my umbrella.

Sentence one seems to be far more used, but is number two also Ok and if so is there any "difference" in meaning? (← does this sentence, by the way, have correct punctuation?)

Thanks for your answers. L.
 
    • Oooh tricky.

    The only difference I can discern is that sentence 2 is talking about a more specific timeframe within 'tomorrow'.

    If it is raining tomorrow (when I leave) then I will take my umbrella.

    Whereas the first one covers 'tomorrow' as a whole. It might rain in the morning and then stop at lunchtime, but when I leave after lunch, I will still take my umbrella with me.
     
    Hi. Is the sentence "I am going to offer you my coat if it rains" about present or about future? I do not have any futher context here, so if possible to use both present and future, could you please explain the difference adding some simple context sentences? Thank you
     
    "If it rains tomorrow (in the original question) could mean that it's raining now.
    These sentences can not be understood without a context.

    (I've just noticed that this is an old question.)
    "I going to offer you my coat if it rains" seems to me to be a strange thing to say. What does it mean exactly?
     
    Last edited:
    e2efour said:
    (I've just noticed that this is an old question.)
    "I am going to offer you my coat if it rains" seems to me to be a strange thing to say. What does it mean exactly?
    Click to expand...

    To be honest, I do not know :) I found this phrase without context in Global English platform (american teaching platform). Thus, i asked you the question.
    I am trying to understand tense. As I understand from heypresto's answer, this is not present.

    Does it mean that this is some mixed conditional or just first one? In the first one we usually use "will". Is there any difference in " I am going to offer you my coat if it rains" and "I will offer you my coat if it rains."?
     
    I'm going to offer you my coat in case it rains makes sense to me, but not if it rains (which refers to the future). The phrase I'm going to suggests something that has been arranged, which does not fit the situation.
    On other hand, I'll offer you my coat if it rains makes better sense (making the giving of the coat conditional on it raining). But we don't have any context to make this clearer.

    Regarding tense, it is not possible to use the will future here (if it will rain:cross:).

    But heypresto's comment ("if it rains" implies that it's not raining now) puzzles me. I don't know what context he is imagining.
     
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