What is different between "If I were you" with "If I had been you"?
2 Answers
The difference is the first variant "simple past" and the second variant is "past perfect".
Explanation:
If I were you Simple past tense
If I had been you Past perfect tense
See explanation.
Explanation:
The difference is the time of the situation described.
The phrase If I were you makes an assumption about a hypothetical situation without mentioning the time. The speaker imagines what would happen if he was someone else.
The phrase If I had been you makes an assumption about a situation which had happened before the time of speaking.
The example use could be a sentence like:
If I had been you I would have accepted that offer.
The sentence tells what the speaker would have done in the situation which is already over and cannot be changed. The speaker had rejected the offer and since time has passed it (i.e. the offer) had probably been accepted by someone else.
