Hello!
For example we have a sentence If you________ (not/be) late, we____________(not/miss) the bus.
Is it correct to say If you hadn't been late, we wouldn't have missed the bus? Can we write would have not missed? This is wrong right?
Yes, this is correct: If you hadn't been late, we wouldn't have missed the bus.
To write "would have not missed" is not correct.
Hello!
To answer your question, let's first understand the structure of the sentence. The sentence you provided is a conditional sentence in the second conditional form. It follows the pattern: "If + subject + simple past tense, subject + would + base form of the verb."
Now let's analyze the specific sentence you mentioned: "If you ________ (not/be) late, we ____________ (not/miss) the bus."
In this sentence, the first part of the sentence is "If you ________ (not/be) late." To complete this part of the sentence, we need to use the past perfect tense because we're referring to an unreal situation in the past. So, the correct form here is "If you hadn't been late."
Moving on to the second part of the sentence, we have "we ____________ (not/miss) the bus." Here, we need to use the perfect conditional to indicate the unreal outcome of the hypothetical situation. The correct form is "we wouldn't have missed the bus." This is because the verb "miss" in the past tense should be in the perfect form when combined with "wouldn't have" to indicate an unreal outcome.
To summarize, the correct sentence is: "If you hadn't been late, we wouldn't have missed the bus."
Using "would have not missed" in this sentence would be incorrect because it breaks the structure of the conditional sentence. The correct form is "wouldn't have missed" to maintain the proper grammatical structure.
I hope this explanation helps! Let me know if you have any further questions.