In this confused words guide we are going to look at how to use if and whether in Indirect speech sentences. We will further look at differences with the help of examples.
Are you still waiting for an intro para that would tell you the significance of English? Not anymore. We at EnglishBix are quite sure by now, that if you are reading our this post then you have definitely gone through the rest of them. English is really very essential not just as a medium of communication but it has also become a status symbol to prove that you are well educated.
We will move ahead with today’s session, working out when to use If and when to use whether.
Check When To Use If & Whether
You might have observed that in an informal or Indirect speech the words ‘If’ and ‘whether’ can be used interchangeably but while in the case of formal writing such as technical writing, or documentation at work you need to be very careful as to when to use ‘if’ and ‘whether’. It is always a good idea to make a distinction between the two because they have different meanings.
If you go for the formal guidelines of English Grammar, you would notice that when you are using any conditional statement or sentence then you need to use ‘if’. Whereas ‘whether’ can be used when you wish to show alternative possibilities. You will be able to understand this by a few examples.
- Mary didn’t know whether Aardvark would arrive on Friday.
- Mary didn’t know if Aardvark would arrive on Friday.
This is the example that shows the two words cannot be used interchangeably.
It is because the sentences bring out different meaning when two different words are used. Here you would feel like using ‘whether’ would be more suitable than using ‘if’.
Examples of Final Pair ‘if-whether’
- Call Martha if you are going to arrive on Friday.
- Call Martha whether or not you are going to arrive on Friday.
In the first, you can see that a condition is raised.
Call Martha if you are going to arrive on Friday which means Aardvark only needs to call if he is coming. But in the next sentence, you can see that ‘whether’ is used.
Call Martha whether or not you are going to arrive on Friday which means Aardvark needs to call either way.
So to summarize it all, use whether when you have two discrete choices or mean “regardless of whether,” and use if for conditional sentences.
Now let’s see some examples which will help you know the difference and application of both the words.
- She is not sure whether she will be attending the party.
- He is not sure if I will be attending the party.
- (Here, in the example, the yes/no question is “Am I attending the party?”)Janice wondered whether she had unplugged the iron.
- Mona wondered if she had unplugged the iron.
Conclusion:
With this blog post, you will be able to make out what is the basic difference between the two words and they should be used to make the sentence meaningful. A slight change in the words can change the entire meaning of the sentence. If you have any doubts regarding the topic and usage of the words you can directly comment us and we will get back to you with perfect answers.