CT04SN-Conditionals.pdf

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Chalk ‘n’ Talk 04 – Conditionals

First Conditional (Probable)

Used for talking about a possible future situation in which the outcome may be

possible.

Structure : If + present tense,

+ will + bare infinitive

✔ If we raise enough capital, we will break into the Chinese market.

 Breaking into the Chinese market is seen as quite likely

✔ If our competitor goes bankrupt, we will increase our market share.

 The competitor could become bankrupt.

✔ If they offer us a unit price of $12.50, we will accept.

 It is probable that they will offer a unit price of $12.50

In the above examples, the use of the present tense in the first part of the

sentence indicates that the situation is possible.

Note: It is incorrect to use will with the first verb:

✘ If they will offer us a unit price…

Second Conditional (Improbable)

Used to refer to less probable or impossible situations. The verb in the second part

of the sentence is preceded by would / should / could / might .

Structure : If + past tense + would should / could / might + bare infinitive

✔ If I had $1 million, I could invest in the telecommunications industry.

 I don’t have $1 million but, if I did, I would invest it.

✔ If we hired a collection agency, we would recover our debts more quickly.

 This is an idea but it hasn’t been tested in practice

Note the difference between these two statements:

✔ If you give us a five per cent discount, we will make a firm order of 500 units.

 This is almost a promise

✔ If you gave us a five per cent discount, we would make you a firm order of

500 units.

 This is still only an imaginary situation

CT 03 – Engl ish Grammar – I NG For ms & Gerunds

Third Conditional (Past Improbable):

Used to speculate about events that did not happen in the past (and the

consequences if they had happened).

Structure : If + past perfect + would / could / should / might + have + past participle

✔ If we had anticipated the stock market crash, we wouldn’t have lost so

much money.

✔ If he had had more experience, we might have offered him the job.

✔ If our quotation had been lower, we could have won the contract.

Transcript

Let’s take a look at the three conditionals. These are your basic conditionals.

Screen

1. If it rains, we will cancel the picnic.

We will go on a picnic if it doesn’t rain.

2. If I were you, I’d get more rest.

I’d buy you a new car if I were rich.

3. If I hadn’t gone to that party years ago,

I wouldn’t have met my future wife.

Number one: We call it the first conditional. Some books call it the real or probable

conditional. Let’s just stick to the first one. Ok, “If it rains, we will cancel the

picnic.” Now take a look at these verb tenses. In the if-clause, we have the Simple

Present. Notice that. It’s still indicating the future. And then we have the Simple

Future over here. “ …we will cancel ”. So the idea is, it could rain. There’s a

possibility of it. It’s probably going to happen. And, so we use the first conditional

for the probable conditional.

You can always put the if-clause later in the sentence, as I’ve done in the second

example for the first conditional here. “We will go on a picnic if it doesn’t rain.”

Here’s your if-clause at the end. So you can put them at the beginning with a

comma or at the end, and notice there’s no comma there.

The second conditional is also known as the improbable or unreal conditional, and

we are going to call it the second conditional. Let’s take a look at this. “If I were

you, I’d get more rest.” “I’d buy you a new car if I were rich.” Those two are the

improbable conditional. In other words, it is impossible for me to be you, but this

actually took place, this is what would happen. Same thing here: “ Am I rich? No,

but if I were rich…. ” Now of course you are going to notice immediately the verbs

here, ‘were’ and ‘were’ with ‘I’. Formally, people use ‘were’ in the second

conditional. Some people also say ‘was’, and that’s a sort of informal way of using it.

Lots of people use it however.

CT 03 – Engl ish Grammar – I NG For ms & Gerunds

So let’s take a look again. “If I were you, I’d get more rest.” ‘I’d’ is actually the

shortened form of the contraction of ‘would’. So it goes, “ If I were you, I’d get more

rest” , I would get more rest. So, in the if-clause, we have the ‘were’ , and, in the

other clause, we have the ‘would’ . Second example here, “I’d buy you a new car if I

were rich” . And I just switched them around. “ If I were rich, I’d buy you a new car.”

Once again, this is “would buy’, and this is ‘were rich’. Is it true? No, but imagine [it

could be].

And finally, we get to the third conditional. This is the past improbable. It didn’t

happen, it’s too late for it to happen, because it happened in the past, or it would

have happened in the past, but it didn’t. So we go into the past improbable. It is

impossible now but imagine if. “ If I hadn’t gone to that party years ago…” this

would for example I met my wife at university at a party, and if I hadn’t gone to

that party, well we wouldn’t be married now. So that’s what this is about.

“If I hadn’t gone to that party years ago, I wouldn’t have met my future wife.” Now

notice the verb tenses here. “Hadn’t gone…”, we have a Past Perfect, and then in

this case, we have ‘would’ plus the past of would which is ‘would’ plus Present

Perfect . So let’s take a look again. “If I hadn’t gone to that party years ago, I

wouldn’t have met my future wife.” I wouldn’t have met my future wife if I hadn’t

gone to that party years ago.

So the verb tenses are all different in these three examples. The first conditional,

the probable one, look at that one, ‘we will’ . “If it rains, we will…”. Next one, “ If I

were you ”, and quite often that is used. “If I were you, I would get more rest.” “If

I hadn’t gone, I wouldn’t have met…”. So these three conditionals indicate different

futures…[oh sorry]. These three conditionals indicate different time frames , and

this is the usual set-up. There are variations, but this is the usual way that

grammar books would present them.

PART 2 Transcript

Before I talk about the grammar in this sentence, I would like to emphasize that

there are lots of mistakes in this sentence. Okay? So this is incorrect grammar.

Who talks like this, or who writes like this? Native English-speakers, especially in

North America, they get confused on past participle versus simple past and ‘ woulda’ ,

‘ shoulda’ , ‘ coulda’ , in the conditionals and so on.

Screen

INCORRECT!

If I would have went there,

I would have drank Pepsi all night.

CT 03 – Engl ish Grammar – I NG For ms & Gerunds

So, let’s take a look at this example. I’ll just read it first, “ If I would have went

there, I would have drank Pepsi all night.”

Now, this is completely wrong for the third conditional as we discussed. And the

third conditional is the past improbable. [Went to] “ Went there,” would be a party

for example and, “ I didn’t drink Coke, I drank Pepsi all night.”

So trying to get this idea across to people. Some native English-speakers would

have said, “ If I woulda went there.” Now, what’s wrong with that? Well, according

to the grammar we’ve been over already, this should be, “ If I had gone there,” –

to the party.

So, why would somebody choose ‘would’ in the if-clause, when there is never a

‘would’ in the if-clause? Why this mistake? Well, when you go contracted ‘I’d’, ‘had’

looks the same as ‘would’. So, when they expand it again, they end up with ‘would’.

And after ‘would’, comes the infinitive ‘have’, like the Present Perfect [coming up].

But then they get the ‘went’ and the ‘gone’ confused – past participle versus the

simple past - so they stick that one in as well.

So, in this case the ‘had’ or the ‘would’ is confusing, and in this part of it the ‘went’

and the ‘gone’ are confusing.

And then we continue on with some problems here, “ I would have drank…” Once

again, in this example anyway, the simple past is used instead of the present

perfect – sorry, the past participle. And this should be ‘drunk’.

Now, why would people get that confused? Well, when you’re brought up in an

English speaking country, you might consider this an adjective. A ‘Drunk’ is

somebody who has had too much alcohol to drink: “ He is drunk.” So, they want to

avoid that, so they put it in the simple past, in a situation where they should have

the past participle. Now, I think you know that, so it should be, “ I would have drunk

Pepsi all night. ” – here for example, instead of Coca Cola.

So, the mistakes here are from hyper-correcting [over-correcting] a lot of things,

and, of course, confusion between these two [would/had], and these two

[have/gone], and these two [drank/drunk].

So, if you’re living in an English speaking country, you will probably hear this third

conditional, grossly incorrectly perhaps.

Screen

CORRECT!

If I had gone there,

I would have drunk Pepsi all night.

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