[Grammar] Sybil Vane feels like being in love with Dorian.

[yi-ing]

Are these two sentences equivalent in meaning, and are both of them correct grammatically? I want to talk about past event.

Sybil Vane felt as if she had fallen in love with Dorian.

Sybil Vane felt like being in love with Dorian.

 

[Skrej]

They are grammatically correct, but not equivalent. The second one isn't very natural.

The first expresses her emotional state of being in love.
The second expresses what she wanted to happen or wished would happen.


Here is an example to clarify the second sentence. "Today I feel like having Korean food for lunch."

 

[yi-ing]

Thank you. So why do we use "as if and like" interchangeably when they both express different meaning?
Now is this like the first one?
Sybil Vane felt like he had fallen in love with Dorian.

 

[GoesStation]

So why do we use "as if and like" interchangeably when they both express different meaning?

If you're doing that, you're often making a mistake.

Now is this like the first one?
Sybil Vane felt like he had fallen in love with Dorian.

"Sybil" is a woman's name, so the pronoun is wrong. The sentence is otherwise grammatically correct but a little odd. Why not just say Sybil Vane had fallen in love with Dorian​?

 

[ambitious-girl]

Can we say?
Sybil Vane felt as if she fell in love with Dorian.
Does the sentence above has the same meaning as the fist one in the original post?

 

[GoesStation]

Can we say this?
Sybil Vane felt as if she fell in love with Dorian.

No. Only the past perfect is possible and, as I said above, the sentence would not be natural.

 

[GoesStation]

No. Only the past perfect is possible and, as I said above, the sentence would not be natural.

My statement above went too far. The past continuous is also possible: She felt like she was falling in love.