YSK if you are late for something, driving over the speed limit will barely help at all.

No, it's due to using the "then" weirdly to introduce the main sentence after the conditional adverbial clause. It sounds weird in English - arguably wrong in this case - but would be perfectly grammatical in German. Better:

"If it doesn't help, you're not driving fast enough"

If you insist on using the "then", you'd have to put it at the end of the main clause:

"If it doesn't help, you're not driving fast enough [then].

More obvious in the comma-free structure:

"You're not driving fast enough then if it doesn't help."

Whereas in German, the "Wenn" allows for a "dann" (that literally translates to "then"):

"Wenn es nicht hilft, [dann] fährst du nicht schnell genug."

/r/YouShouldKnow Thread Parent