ALL The English Conditionals… EXPLAINED! 🔥

you know conditionals are important but every time you learn them it's so complicated right well I don't understand why English conditionals are really not that difficult so I'm going to explain to you very very simply how and when to use the zero first second third and mixed conditionals in English and you're gonna see that English conditionals are really not that scary [Music] okay listen carefully because this definition of a conditional sentence is really going to help you for the whole of the rest of the lesson okay a conditional sentence is basically two parts to a sentence part one starts with the word if and this is the condition like if this happens then the second part of the sentence is the result the result if that condition is true so if this happens that happens if blah blah blah blue blue okay and we can change the order of this so we can say blue blue if blah blah blah it doesn't matter which order we put them in but you must really make a division between the two parts of the sentence if condition result okay have you got that because the zero first second and third conditionals all have that in common that is the structure of a conditional sentence and the only reason we have a zero first second and third conditional are to talk about different tenses of that condition so let's have a look at these conditionals starting with the zero conditional and you can download a summary of all the conditionals including the examples and even a test to test your knowledge of the conditionals in English by downloading that PDF which is free and there's a link to that in the description okay let's get going okay so as I mentioned we have two parts to the sentence if plus the condition and the result with the zero conditional they both need to be in the present simple both of these parts of the sentence need to be in the present simple and we use this zero conditional to talk about facts things that happen all the time or scientific facts so for example if water reaches zero degrees it freezes or water freezes if it reaches zero degrees we can also use the word when in the zero conditional instead of the word if so we can say if you heat ice it melts or when you heat ice it melts or changing the order ice Heats when you melt it it's hot when the sun shines questions in the zero conditional normally start with do or does a question and we normally put the If part the condition at the end of the sentence does metal melt when you heat it does rain turn to snow if it's three degrees Celsius so quite simply if you're talking about facts or things that always happen use the zero conditional easy [Music] two parts to the first conditional but with if the condition must be in the present simple tense and the result must be in the future with Will for example if you subscribe to the channel you will get new lessons from me every Friday true and again the order of this is not important we can say I will call you if I hear any news or if I hear any news I will call you now the zero conditional talks about very general situations like ice snow things like that but the first conditional talks about more specific situations like I will call you if I hear any news and the important thing is that we use the first conditional when we are pretty sure that the result is going to happen either we know it's going to happen or it's very very probable that it's going to happen like I tell my daily Quick Fix students if you need me I will be happy to help you the condition is if you need me and the result is I will be happy to reply I will be happy to help you with your English I know that I will be genuinely happy to do that now the structure of the first conditional can be slightly modified if you want to use an imperative an imperative is like an order so instead of using will like I will call you if I hear any news we can use an imperative like call me if you hear any news and we can also replace will with a modal verb in the first conditional and when I say A modal verb I mean things like May might could for example I might ask her to come if you don't mind or I may join you if I have time again we can change the order if I have time I may join you and that's okay too for questions we simply change the order of the subject or the person and will or the modal verb we just go and that's that so instead of you will it becomes will you if you hear anything will you call me if you see him will you ask how his mother is or instead of I may may I may I join you if I have time now before we look at the second conditional let's just have a look at one very common mistake that students make with the first conditional and that mistake is using the word will with the If part of the sentence if it will be sunny we will go to the beach no if it is sunny we will go to the beach if needs to go with the present simple tense and the result has to include the future with will if you will study hard you will pass the exam no don't put will in the condition if you study hard you will pass the exam just remember the expression if I will makes me ill don't do it all right let's have a look at the second conditional [Music] okay the two parts of the second conditional are if plus the past simple if I X if I wanted if I had and the result is would plus the verb I would buy I would go I would take and as always the order of these two parts of the sentence is not important so quick summary we use the zero conditional to talk about General facts things that happen all the time we use the first conditional to talk about specific situations that will happen we're almost sure that they're going to happen the second conditional is used for situations that are very very hypothetical very very unlikely to happen almost impossible or completely impossible like are you going to win the lottery probably not are you going to visit the Moon no and are you a wild animal I don't think so and they're the type of situations that if we talk about them we need the second conditional so remembering the structure if and the past simple for the condition and then the result with wood if I won the lottery I would buy a rocket if I had a rocket I would visit the Moon if I were a wild animal I would be a lion okay all of these situations are highly improbable or impossible and completely hypothetical we can put both parts of these sentences in the negative if we want like if I didn't work I wouldn't have any money if I didn't have any money I would ask my dad for some and for questions using the second conditional we put the wood part in the question form so would you visit the moon if you had a rocket what would you do if you won the lottery travel the world okay which countries would you visit just change the order of the person and would so instead of you would would you and Bob's your uncle now a very very common question that people ask me about the second conditional is which is correct if I was blah blah blah or if I were blah blah blah well officially and formally if I were is the correct option but really in modern spoken English you will hear if I was a lot so much so that it sounds correct and and it's really really common but hey if you're writing an exam or if you're having a meal with the King perhaps use if I were now another very very common mistake that students like you make with the second conditional is using the word would in the condition with if like if I would meet Shakira my heart would go faster no not if I would meet it needs to be the past simple for that condition if I met Shakira my heart would go crazy so similar to the expression that I told you in the first conditional if I will makes me ill thing here if I would it's no good so how are you doing so far not too scary right uh well remember you can download the PDF there which gives you a full summary of all these conditionals all the examples and a test the link is in the description and that's a little gift from me to you all right you ready for the third conditional the third conditional something I talk about a lot inside my daily Quick Fix group and I always like to teach my Quick Fix students the pronunciation and the grammar of this at the same time because if you do and if we focus on this it's going to be much easier for you to understand native speakers when they're using this structure and it's also going to help you use it more naturally so let's have a look now remember we used the second conditional to talk about very very hypothetical situations things that were almost impossible almost definitely not going to happen but we were talking about the present and the future in that tense if I had a rocket I don't have a rocket but I might hypothetically in the future well the third conditional is very similar because we're talking about completely hypothetical and impossible situations but in the past in other words we're talking about an event that didn't happen in the past we're talking about a version of the past that didn't actually happen so this is great for talking about things like regrets right the structure of this third conditional is with the If part we need the past perfect the past perfect is things like if I had known if I had eaten if I had taken and I always recommend using the contraction for this so instead of if I had known say if I'd I'd if I'd if I'd known if I'd eaten if I'd taken then the result if that condition is true uses the structure would have and the past participle I would have said I would have been I would have gone now I said use the contraction for the first part of that sentence you should also get into the habit of using the contraction for the result as well so instead of would have said you can say I would have said I would have been I would have gone if you put the two parts of the sentence together the third conditional looks like this if I'd known her boyfriend had left her I would have said something okay I didn't know this is a version of the past that didn't happen because I didn't know but if I'd known I would have said something okay we have a bad egg I didn't eat it phew because if I'd eaten that bad egg I would have been ill if I'd eaten that bad egg I would have been ill if I had taken German at University I would have lived in Germany for a year quickly with the contractions if I'd taken German at University I would have lived in Germany for a year I didn't take German I took French at University so again we're talking about a version of the past that didn't happen again to form questions in the third conditional it's the wood part that we want to make into a question and we normally put that at the beginning of the sentence we don't have to but we normally do like would you have gone to the beach yesterday if it had been Sunny what would you have become if you had studied medicine at University what would you have become if you'd studied medicine at University okay guess what there's one more type of conditional let's have a look [Music] conditionals well been in third conditionals all talk about a same time period so with zero conditional we have a present condition and a present result with the first conditional we have a future condition and a future result with the second conditional it's a hypothetical future condition and a hypothetical future result and in the third conditional it's a hypothetical past condition and a hypothetical past result now mixed conditionals combine different time periods in each part of the sentence so which when you think about it logically means that there are six different mixed conditional combinations that we can have and they're all correct so the combinations are that we can have a past condition combined with a present or future result we can have a present condition where the past or future result and we have a future condition with a past or present results I don't want to spend too much time on this but let me just explain them briefly the past and present combination talks about an unreal past situation and its result on the present if he had passed his medicine exam he would be a doctor now he didn't pass past unreal situation the result now he would be a doctor now the past and future combination talks about an imaginary past situation and it's a result on the future my football team lost the semi-final if they had won the semi-final in the past they would be playing in tomorrow's final Future Okay the present and past combination talks about an improbable present and its result on the past so if they were a better team now they would have won yesterday's semi-final that's the result on the past and present and future talks about an improbable present and its result on the future if they had good players they don't they would win tomorrow's final result on the future okay for the future and talk about an unreal future and its effect on the past like the final tomorrow if the final wasn't in a different country I would have bought a ticket and combining the future and the present we talk about a hypothetical situation in the future and its results on the present if I were going to the game tomorrow I would be so happy right now so don't stress too much about these mixed conditionals just know that they are possible you will hear them and sometimes you will need them okay now wait there's one more type of conditional [Music] now if you want to take your conditionals to an even higher level you should learn some Advanced conditionals I'm not going to over complicate this video by talking about Advanced conditionals but if you want to have an advanced C1 level of English you should really be comfortable using the advanced conditionals that I teach you in that video there so download the summary and take the test from today's lesson and if you're brave enough I'll see you in that video next bye for now thank you

Channel: English with Greg

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Keywords: english with greg, british english, pronunciation, grammar, learn english, british english teacher, b2, c1, fce, cae, ielts, esl, efl, all conditionals, English conditionals, if conditionals, zero conditional, first conditional, second conditional, third conditional, mixed conditional, advanced conditional, conditionals lesson, if clauses, tenses, English tenses, conditionals in English, conditional sentences, english grammar conditionals, english conditional sentences

Id: KVRozKu2pZs

Length: 20min 8sec (1208 seconds)

Published: Fri Jul 14 2023