If your grandma was(were) alive, she would be happy to see that you have a family now

[yuri05]

Hi, I have been trying to figure this out but I can't seem to find an explanation anywhere. Are the following sentences correct?

If your grandma were alive, she would be happy to see that you have a family now.
If you studied Chinese, you would realize that it was/is not as hard as you think/thought.

What I want to draw attention to here is the tense of the verb in the that-sentences and the sentence introduced by as. I am naturally drawn to pick the versions with the present, just because I've heard and read sentences like that many times, but I was wondering, does the subjunctive attract the verb in the subordinate clause as well, like in "If you knew what I were thinking about" (referring to the present)?

 

[Roman55]

The question should be, 'Are the following sentences correct?'

All of your sentences are possible.

The subjunctive in, 'If your grandma were alive, she would be happy to see that you have a family now' is more common in AmE than in BrE where you would often find 'was', but different people use it differently.

As for, 'If you studied Chinese, you would realize that it was/is not as hard as you think/thought' almost any combination could be used. I would probably use 'is' and 'think' but it's a question of preference and of what you want to stress.

 

[yuri05]

Thanks for your reply. What about the sentence "That you have/had a family"? Would you use the present?

 

[Rover_KE]

They are both acceptable.