Which one do you avoid?
Read your six conditionals to a partner. They count how many of each type you actually wrote.
Almost everybody is short of one of the three. Which one is personal; that there is one is not.
Six sentences, three pairs. Match each to what the speaker believes about how likely it is.
One situation, three tenses
The same speaker, about the same job, at three different moments.
Before applying: If I applied for that job, I would have to move, and I do not think I want to move.
After applying: If I get it, I will have to move by September. I have already looked at flats.
About the general rule: If you take a job in another city, you move. That is how it works.
Four questions about the three moments.
1. What changed between the first and the second sentence?
2. The third sentence uses present in both halves. What is it describing?
3. Could the third sentence use when instead of if?
4. Could the second sentence use when?
The three, and the words around them
The full form
| Type | If-clause | Main clause | Speaker believes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Zero | present | present | This is always true. if ≈ when |
| First | present | will · might · could · can + verb | This may well happen |
| Second | past | would · could · might + verb | This probably will not, or is not the case |
were | if I / he / she were | would | Standard in the second. was is accepted informally |
if I were you | Fixed | I would… | Advice. Never if I was you in writing |
unless | = if … not | Either | Real conditions only. Never a second negative |
The modal in the main clause changes the confidence, not the type.
If I had time, I would learn the piano. — I am sure I would.
If I had time, I might learn the piano. — I am not sure I would even then.
If I had time, I could learn the piano. — it would become possible.
The same three sit in the first conditional as will, might and can. Two decisions per sentence, and they are independent: how likely is the condition, and how sure am I of the result.
One to three words per gap. The sentence around each gap tells you how likely the speaker thinks it is.
I have already applied, so if I it, I will move in September. I have not applied for the other one, and honestly if I it I not take it. If you a job in another city, you move — that is simply how it works. And if I you, I apply for both and decide afterwards.
Two words that trip everybody.
unless already contains the negative. Unless it rains = if it does not rain. Never unless it does not rain.
in case is not if. Take an umbrella in case it rains — take it now, as a precaution, before you know. Take an umbrella if it rains — only take it once it has started, which is not what anybody means.
Eight sentences. Errors of type, of would placement, and of unless and in case.
1. If I would win the lottery, I would buy a boat.
2. If it will snow, the schools close.
3. I have applied, so if I got it I would move.
4. Unless you don’t hurry, we will miss it.
5. Take some cash if the machine is broken. — meaning: as a precaution
6. If I was you, I would say nothing. — in a written piece
7. If I had more time, I will learn Greek.
8. If she calls, I would not know what to say. — she calls every week
Two decisions per sentence
One to four words per gap. Choose the type from the likelihood and the modal from the confidence.
If the funding comes through, work start in the spring — the contracts are signed. If it come through, which nobody expects at this point, we start again from the beginning. If I honest, I think it will be late whatever happens. And something changes at the council, it will be late by about a year.
Six lines. Put them in the order that follows one hypothesis into its consequences.
- That is a twenty-minute bus each way for a nine-year-old.
- Most of them would not find anything similar within an hour of here.
- None of which is an argument for keeping a factory open, but it is what the argument is actually about.
- If the factory closed, about four hundred people would lose their jobs.
- And if the school shrank, the council would look at merging it with the one in the next town.
- If they moved, the school would lose about a fifth of its intake.
Follow it four steps
Task card · Speaking · Pairs · 3 minutes each
Your partner gives you a hypothesis. You have to follow it four consequences deep, out loud, without stopping.
Four linked conditionals per hypothesis, three hypotheses each.
- Partner: What if the buses were free? · What if nobody had to work Fridays? · What if the shop closed?
- You: state the first consequence, then use it as the condition for the next.
- Every main clause needs a modal. Vary it — would, could, might.
- Your voice rises at the end of every if-clause. Your partner is listening for that.
The fourth step is where it gets interesting. Anybody can name the first consequence of free buses. The fourth is where you find out what you actually think.
From the chains
Four sentences from the chains. Fix each.
1. If the buses would be free, more people would use them.
2. If more people used them, the council will need more drivers.
3. Unless they don’t hire more drivers, the service gets worse.
4. If the service got worse — anyway.
Likelihood, then confidence
Three questions.
1. What decides between the first and second conditional?
2. Take an umbrella in case it rains. When do you take it?
3. If I had time, I might learn Greek. What does might add?
Before next lesson. Choose one law you would change, and write four consequences of changing it — each one following from the last.
Four exactly. Next lesson we look at the words that hold a chain like that together, and at the one that lets you concede a point without giving it up.