"I would have had children, if I were not so old."

Translation: Jeg ville have haft børn, hvis jeg ikke var så gammel.

[careen-san]

I'm more interested in the more common Danish way of saying this type of sentence, which I haven't mastered yet. Would it be correct to say "Jeg havde haft børn, var jeg ikke så gammel"? or "Jeg havde haft børn, hvis jeg ikke var blevet så gammel"?

[ycUvuSap]

The English tenses do not seem to match the pattern of past conditionals; see for example https://www.englishpage.com/conditional/pastconditional.html .

[Pippapips]

I am puzzled by the order of the words in the second part of the sentence. Shall I give a try at the positive alternative? "Jeg ville have haft børn, hvis var jeg yngre." Is this the correct guess?

[RyagonIV]

The second part of the sentence is a subordinate clause. In subordinate clauses the adverb (in this case ikke) appears before the conjugated verb instead of after. Otherwise it works like any other sentence.

Your sentence would need to be "Jeg ville have haft børn, hvis jeg var yngre."

[NicholasPa38063]

The English sentence makes absolutely no sense as it stands. How can my age today have any relevance to my ability to have had children at some point in the past? Assuming that my age was relevant to my decision not to have children back then, then what was relevant was not my age now, but rather my age back then when I had the opportunity to have children.

I.e. the sentence must be restructured: "If I had not (already) been so old (at that point in the past), then I would have (gone ahead and) had children."

[geometry667721]

Yes, like in many of the sentences in this lesson, the grammar is messed up here. I reported it and I don't understand why your explanation of the conditional got downvoted here.

[watsond2255]

A previous example sentence went "hvis ikke det var for dig" yet here it is "hvis jeg ikke var så gammel". I'm totally confused.