This is a text about elderly people. Two persons wear makeup to look like old people and to understand what it's like to be old. after this experiment one of them said this.
They were talking about real things and I felt unqualified. I didn't
have that life experience. They had been through so much. It made me
realize how ignorant I was. It was as if I was seeing the young people
inside them.Before I would have just seen the wrinkles.
I can't understand the meaning and what grammar this is?
Best Answer
An unreal conditional:
If I had understood the grammar, I would have explained it to you. First verb: past perfect, Second verb: past conditional.
In your sentence, the first part is assummed, it is not spoken, it would look like this:
[If I had not done this experiment of putting on make-up to look like an old person], I would have just seen the wrinkles. [and not how they are real people].
Just seen means: only seen old people as people with wrinkles and not as "great" people in their own right.
In English, we often imply the first part of an unreal conditional and do not state it clearly,