Without a doubt. In your
years of English practice, you've studied the conditionals.
Right now, your brain might be racing, thinking conditionals, conditional. Oh, I think there's a first and a second.
You're exactly right. In fact, we have four conditional forms in
English. The zero, first, second, and third, and now I've got a twist. We also have mixed conditionals,
as you might guess, a mixed conditional mixes
the forms or structures of the other conditionals. Let's take
a look at an example sentence. If we had downloaded the directions
before we lost our signal, we wouldn't be lost. Right
now in this sentence, I've combined the third and
the second conditional forms. Now again, I know your brain might be racing and
you're thinking this sounds really confusing, and do I really
need this? I hear you. Conditionals can be tricky. However, I'm going to walk through this with you
step by step and give you ample examples so that you understand why you want to
use mixed conditionals in your English conversations and how to use them with
accuracy. By the end of this lesson, you'll be ready to use
them with more confidence, so get a notebook and a pen or pencil
and get ready to take some notes and at the end I've got an extra special
bonus to help you practice. But very quickly, if this is your first
time here, welcome. I'm Annemarie, an English confidence and fluency coach. Everything I do is designed to help you
get the confidence you want for your life and work in English. If you'd love
more free resources and lessons from me, including lessons I have on the zero,
first, second and third conditionals, you can find hundreds of my Confident
English lessons at my Speak Confident English website. While you're there, you can also download my in-depth
training called How to Get the Confidence to Say What You Want
In English. In that training, I share my number one fluency and
confidence building strategy or if you would love to learn, practice, speak and make progress
in your English with me, be sure to check out my Confident Women
Community to start this lesson. Today. I want to briefly refresh
your memory of the zero first, second and third conditional so that we
have those correct structures in your mind because we'll be using them as
we continue into the mixed conditional forms. I also want to talk about why
mixed conditionals are so useful. Then we'll get into three specific
reasons You'll want to use the mixed conditionals and I'll
be giving you examples. Let's talk briefly about the
four conditional structures. Why do we have them and we'll look
at an example sentence for each. One reason we use the zero
conditional is it helps us talk about routines, facts, and truths. For example, if you heat ice, it melts, the first conditionals are
used for present or future situations that are likely
or possible. For instance, we might use them to make a promise
to someone or give someone a morning. If you cook dinner tonight,
I will do the dishes. When we transition to the
second conditional form, we are not just changing our structure
but we're also changing our focus. Instead of thinking about likely
or possible present and future situations, we're thinking
about unlikely, unreal, maybe even impossible
present or future situations. We use this when we want to
express a wish for an alternate reality. For example, if I had one extra hour in the day,
I would spend my time painting. Now of course I can't add to
time, I can't change time. Time is fixed. I have 24
hours a day just like you do, but I can wish for an alternate
reality and I express that wish through the second conditional form
and now the third conditional form focuses on the past the unreal past. We think about a situation that
didn't happen in the past but we wish it did. This allows us to express regrets
over past actions or decisions. For example, if you had told
me that you needed help, I would've canceled my trip and stayed
home to help you. In that sentence, I'm expressing that I wish something
else had happened in the past. Unfortunately it didn't. Now if you want to get in depth lessons
on each one of those conditional forms, I've got lessons on all of them at
my Speak Confident English website. I'll leave links in the
notes below as well. So now why do we need the
mixed conditionals if we
already have these other four? Each of those four conditionals
focuses on situations or actions that happened within a specific
timeframe. For example, the first conditional is focused on
the present or future that is likely the second conditional is also
focused on the present or future, but unlikely or even impossible. The
third conditional focused on the past. However, sometimes something
that happens in the past also influences or impacts the current moment. Mixed conditionals allow us to demonstrate
that they allow us to transition through time or connect those past
decisions with something that is happening in the moment or
something that could happen. Let's walk through this step by step. I'm going to share with
you three sentences, the first and the second conditional,
then the third, and then a mixed form. To do this, I want you to imagine two people going
on a road trip and they're traveling to somewhere somewhat remote. For example, if you're in my area and you're
visiting big Surf for the first time, there are places on that drive where
you will lose your cell phone signal. So here's my first sentence in
the second conditional form, if we had a good signal, we
could download the directions. Now in this sentence we're
focused on the unreal present. The truth is we don't have a good signal
right now so we can't download the directions and perhaps
as a result we're lost. This is all focused on the unreal present. Now let's say you've
arrived at your destination, you've had some time to relax, it's the next day and you're telling
someone a story about your drive. Yesterday, if we had downloaded our directions
before losing the signal, we would not have gotten lost. Here
I'm focused on the unreal past. I can't change yesterday,
it's already finished, but I can definitely express some
regret over what happened or maybe some frustration, some annoyance. The third conditional allows
me to focus on that unreal past and now we're going to mix them. If we had downloaded the directions
before losing our signal, we wouldn't be lost. Here I'm focused on the unreal past. At some point in the past we
didn't download our directions. Maybe it was 30 minutes ago, maybe
one hour ago, maybe it was yesterday, and now that we don't have the
signal we're lost in this moment, that past action has
impacted our present moment. This is why mixed
conditionals are helpful. Sometimes our past decisions
or past events influence the present moment when we are focused
on conditionals that highlight the unreal past and their
influence on an unreal present or future. To accurately use this specific
type of a mixed conditional, we have a form or structure
that we want to follow In the if clause we start with the
third conditional structure. If plus the past, perfect. If I had packed my sunscreen, then we add wood followed by
the base form of the verb. This is a part of the
second conditional form. I wouldn't have a sunburn right now. In addition to using the if
plus past perfect plus wood plus base form of the verb, we have a second structure we
can also use to help emphasize an unreal present or future. For example, I want you to imagine you're having a
conversation with a friend who a few months ago said no to a job offer.
It was a really good job offer, but it would require her to move to
a new city and she didn't want to move. You might be having a conversation
with her right now and in that conversation you might say, if
you had accepted that job offer, you would be moving across the country
right now or you would be moving across the country next week. How are
you feeling? Are you happy you stayed? Are you happy with your
decision? For this example, I've changed the structure just a bit. I'm still using the if plus past
perfect for that unreal past and then it's followed by wood plus the
two be verb and an ING verb. You would be moving. I want to share with you
several more example sentences, real sentences that someone might use
to illustrate these structures and then we'll talk about three specific reasons. You'll want to use this
type of a mixed conditional. Here are four more sentences that
focus on the unreal past with the unreal present or future. If
I had learned French as a kid, I would have a perfect
French accent right now, unfortunately neither of those are true. It's an unreal past and an unreal present. If she hadn't received the scholarship, she wouldn't be going to Harvard
right now. Thank goodness she got it. If I hadn't spent all my bonus right away, I would have enough money saved to go
to New York City with you next month and now this last example. Imagine someone saying it in the
middle of running a marathon. If I hadn't trained as much as I
did, this would feel more difficult, but I feel great right now. Before we get into three specific
reasons to use these mixed conditionals, I have one last tip. Like all conditional forms we can
reverse the clauses in the sentence. One of my examples was if I had
remembered to pack my sunscreen, I wouldn't have a sunburn right
now and I can reverse those with. I wouldn't have this sunburn right now
if I had remembered to pack my sunscreen. For the remainder of this lesson, I want to highlight how we use this
mixed conditional form to indicate missed opportunities and past regrets that
have an impact on the present or future. We also use this mixed conditional to
share assumptions about what we think would be different right now and we
can use it to express willingness or to give advice. Be sure to stick with me to the end
because I also want to share with you a special bonus I have to help you
practice. As I highlighted earlier, we can use the third conditional
to highlight a past regret, something that we wish had
been different about the past. We can also use mixed conditionals to
highlight those missed opportunities and the reality that that missed
opportunity or regret influences or has an impact on our present
or future. For example, she would be able to pay off her house
right now if she had invested in that stock when you told her to. The truth is she didn't
invest when you told her to, and as a result she doesn't have all
the money right now to pay off her house the way she wants. If my daughter
hadn't missed her flight yesterday, I wouldn't need to spend
extra money on a ticket. If I had pursued art at a younger age, I would probably be a better artist now, but better late than never because
we can use more than one conditional to express regret. I want to compare how I might
express regret using the second conditional and how I would do
it in the mixed conditional form. This first sentence is going to
be in the second conditional form. If I spoke Spanish now, I wouldn't need to rely on
a translator. Now again, the second conditional focuses
on unreal present or future, so the truth is I don't speak
Spanish now and I do need to rely on a translator as a result, that entire sentence is focused
on an unreal present. Now, in this second example
sentence, I want to do a mix. I want to focus on something that
didn't happen in the past and its impact on the present. If I had
learned Spanish in the past, I wouldn't need to rely on a translator. Now here the first part of that
sentence is focused on the unreal past and its influence on the present, so now I want to pause here for a
moment and ask you to reflect on past decisions, past outcomes that perhaps were
missed opportunities or regrets that still have an impact on
your life today or potentially on your future. Is there a sentence
you might use to express that? I have three sentence starters
to help you think this through. Take a moment to review
them and if you want to, you can share an example with
me in the comments below. If I had studied or learned,
I would or wouldn't. If I had pursued when I was younger, I would or wouldn't if I
had become a I would or wouldn't. And now let's talk
about the second reason. You'll want to use this
mixed conditional form. You can use it to share an assumption
about what you think might be different about the present or
future. Imagine for example, you're attending a lecture with a friend
and at the end of the presentation an audience member asks the presenter a
question and it's a question that seems like it should be easy to answer. However, you notice that the presenter is
obviously struggling with how to answer this question.
While this is happening, you might whisper to a friend
if she had done her research, she wouldn't be struggling with this
question or she wouldn't hesitate to answer this question. In this case, you are acting on the assumption
or the belief that she didn't do her research. The truth is you don't really know
and you don't really know why she's struggling in the present moment,
perhaps something simply distracted her. This statement allows us to express that
assumption that if something else had happened in the past, something else
would be true about the present moment. Here's another example of how
we might assume the way a person would respond if they were
present in that moment. Let's say you and your coworkers had a
surprising meeting with your manager that day, however, one of your coworkers wasn't there
in talking about what happened. You might say Melissa would be
furious if she had heard the manager speak that way. Of course, you can't know for certain how someone
else might feel or respond in a particular situation, but we can make an assumption about it
and this mixed conditional form helps us express that assumption. And finally, the third reason you'll want to use this
mixed conditional form is you can use it to express advice or feedback. Imagine for example, you manage a team and just
before a major deadline, one of your team members requests
help or says that she's unable to complete the project. As a result, the entire team is in chaos
and maybe has to work extra to make up for this situation, and it could have been addressed earlier, but it wasn't in giving
feedback to that team member. You might say, if I had been informed earlier
when this issue initially began, our team would be better
prepared to handle this request. How can we improve communication going
forward to avoid putting extra stress on the team? Here's one more example of how we might
use this to give advice or feedback. In this case, I want you to imagine that you work at
a doctor's office and you're training a new team member. A woman has just arrived for her
doctor's appointment and she's a little frustrated that she can't see
the doctor right away. Instead, she has to spend 10 or 15 minutes
completing a series of forms. Now, while the patient is doing that and in
the process of training your new team member, you might say if she had
completed the forms online beforehand, she would be with the doctor right now
and we would avoid these uncomfortable situations. We always encourage our clients to
complete the forms online to save time when they arrive for their
doctor's appointment. You now have a complete
overview of how and why to use this mixed conditional
form focused on the unreal past with the unreal present and future. I know that practice is a hundred
percent necessary to gain that automatic ability to be
accurate when using these forms, and that's why I have
an extra bonus for you, a downloadable PDF worksheet
that gives you ample opportunity to use the correct structures and
I give you examples to check your answers. On the worksheet, you'll find 12 sentence prompts with
the key words you should use for your example sentence, and as always, if you want to share any of your
examples with me, you can do that. The best place is in the comments below. If you'd like to get that PDF worksheet, I want you to visit this lesson at
my Speak Confident English website. I'll provide a link directly
below this video. And with that, if you found today's lesson helpful, I would love to know and there are a
few ways that you can tell me that. Number one, you can give this lesson a
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look forward to seeing you next time.
