Zero, First and Second CONDITIONALS Explained

21

Come on you've got to let me know. Should I stay or should I go?

if you say that you are mine, I will stay here

till the end of time.

If I go there will be trouble,

but if I stay, it will be double.

so come on let me know just tell me what

it is you want!

You want to know how to use the first

and second conditionals? That's it?

Ok I'll explain and I promise

you won't be disappointed

and you'll know it perfectly. But first

of all I have something to tell you.

You're not going to like it but there's

also a zero conditional. Don't look at me

like that!

It's quite simple. So with the zero

conditional something at some point is

definitely going to happen. For example

"if it's hot, I usually wear a hat."

You know it's the zero conditional because

IF can be changed to WHEN without a

change of meaning. "When it's hot, I

usually wear a hat" both parts are in the

present tense you see. In all

Conditionals you have a condition and the

the result of that condition and in all

the conditionals you can put the clause

in any order. yes I know (the 0 conditional) is not a real

conditional I just wanted to give you

the whole picture. So "I usually wear a

hat, if it's hot" you see you can put the

clauses in any order it's just the same

but if you ASK me a question I answer

it properly. By the way there's a comma

after the condition and before the

result. So it's like this. Let's look at

the first conditional. The first

conditional (also called the future

conditional) because we do not know what

will happen in the future do we? It so might

happen or it might not but it's

certainly possible.

"if Alice comes this evening, we'll eat Chinese food!"

who's Alice? that's just an example don't be

like that. "If you are nice with me, I'll

be nice with you". What's that? Do we

always have to use WILL? No you can

substitute WILL for another modal and

that's true of all conditionals in the

second conditional, which we'll come to in a minute,

you could substitute WOULD for another

modal so for example. "If we go and get

ice cream,

I might get pistachio". Now let's

look at the second conditional. It's

IF + past tense + WOULD + plus verb

we use the second conditional to talk

about improbable or impossible

situations. We are talking here about

present or future improbability.

For example "If I had more time, I would spend

it with you". Unfortunately I don't it's

just like that. "If she lived in London

she would go to the theatre every

weekend" Remember in the conditional with

the verb TO BE we say WERE for all

persons. In spoken English you might hear

WAS "If I was" but if you're writing or

speaking speaking formally use WERE.

what's that? for example:

"If I were the president, I would make beer free." Got it?

good. Friends again? Great

stay mellow.