Tell me please if there is any difference between it and that in the following context.
Person 1: Last week I bench-pressed 150 kilos.
Person 2: It/that is not impossible because the week before you bench-pressed only 135 kilos.
As a non-native speaker I cannot see the difference between it and that, so please help me see it if there is any.
Best Answer
Consider the following conversation:
That refers back to what has just been said, that is, to the other person's claim that Dmytro lifted 1000 pounds. In this conversational context, that = what you said a moment ago.
It refers forward to what is being said now by the skeptic; you can understand it like this:
{Something} is not possible! What is the thing that is not possible? The impossible something = "for a human being to lift so much weight".
In this conversational context, it = what I am about to say.