What is the kid doing in the photo? Would you do that if you were him? Are you him? How likely is it that he will follow the advice?
What is correct?
If he knew that I was home now, he would call.
If he knew that I were home now, he would call.
If he knew that I am home now, he would call.
Since we started the sentence with 'knew', we should go with the flow and use the past tense, again. So, 'am' is not an option here.
Now, if you can remember, we use 'were' to indicate a hypothetical state or a state contrary to reality,
 |
| adapted from j4p4n |
If he knew that I was home now, he would call.
If he knew that I were home now, he would call.
If he knew that I am home now, he would call.
Since we started the sentence with 'knew', we should go with the flow and use the past tense, again. So, 'am' is not an option here.
Now, if you can remember, we use 'were' to indicate a hypothetical state or a state contrary to reality,
- If I were a butterfly, I would have wings. (but I'm not a butterfly and I don't have any wings)
- I wouldn't do that if I were you.
so, because I am actually home now, a logical answer would be: 'was'.
Moreover, Google Books has a substantially larger number of written instances of "if he knew I was here", than of "if he knew I were here".
