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In the English language, as in Spanish, the conditionals It is essential to talk about situations that occur only if another event also takes place.
In both languages, in addition, it is a verb tense that goes a bit out of the classical simplicity that divides them into present, past and future, since the conditional tense always marks a possibility B based on a circumstance A, which could have already happenedperfect conditiontal) or not (simple conditional) at the moment of enunciation. In the Spanish language, the conditional is part of the indicative mood.
Types of conditional sentences
- Zero conditional: This conditional is applied when laws or general principles (almost always of physics or chemistry) of permanent and invariable compliance are enunciated: it has the form “If + present simple,…. present simple ".
- First conditional: This shows a possible situation that depends on a precondition, generally predicts the logical consequence of an event, often as a warning. The form it takes is "if + present simple, ... future (will)".
- Second conditional and third conditional: These refer to more hypothetical situations, but with a fundamental difference: the first of these is used to refer to imaginary or hypothetical situations but located in the present and still with the possibility of occurring, while the 'third conditional' refers retrospectively to a possibility that existed in the past but no longer exists. The forms of these conditionals are "if + simple past + simple conditional (would)" is "if + past perfect (already impossible situation) + perfect conditional (would + present perfect)".
As can be seen, the complexity of the structure increases the further the possibility of something happening becomes. It must also be said that there are some words that can replace the ‘if’ keeping the idea of conditional situation: these are, for example, provided, unless and as long as (equivalent to "as long as", "unless", "whenever", respectively).
Examples of conditional sentences
- If you go to northern hemisphere, there is autumn when here is spring
- If you freeze water, it turns into ice
- If I meet him, I will tell the truth
- If your husband hadn´t lie, you would not be in trouble now.
- If I had worked harder, I would have won the Nobel prize
- If we go faster, we will get the train
- If you buy the new IPhone with this credit card, you will get a considerable discount
- If Paul wins the prize, he will be very excited
- If I were you, I would go to everywhere they invite me
- If he comes to town, we will have dinner at that restaurant as usual.
- Unless somebody thinks like you, you will not be considered a “friend” there.
- If you had a car, you would arrive on time
- Nobody will defend you if you do that madness
- If you study hard, you will pass your exams
- If the people had chosen that, he would have been president
- If his wife drives the car, be sure that they will get lost.
- If I were to Colombia, I would visit Cartagena
- If my granma asked me for him, I would tell her the truth.
- I will travel to USA unless they don't give me the VISA
- If they sold that old-fashioned house, they would reduce their expenses considerably
Andrea is a language teacher, and on her Instagram account she offers private lessons by video call so that you can learn to speak English.
