48: Finally Understand English Conditionals in Under 23 Minutes (All Types)

Today you're going to learn all about the various conditionals in English and I like teaching this lesson because the examples that you give can be quite inventive, quite fun and a great idea with this, just like any of the lessons that I give is for you to practice some sentences and use the app that I recommend I'll leave a link in the description for that so then they can correct sentences for you but yeah we're going to talk about conditionals in English and I'm going to start with one right now by just saying I personally do not like wearing suits so a suit is that formal attire with the pants and the jacket a shirt and normally a tie as well and I don't like wearing suits because they're uncomfortable I don't know about you if you are male if you like wearing suits but I don't like wearing them but I wear a suit when I go to a wedding I wear a suit when I go to a wedding now this is called the zero conditional and I'll explain it in a minute but before I do hello my name is Jack from tofluency.com welcome to you if you are new here or if you haven't done so already subscribe to this channel right now we release a lesson every Thursday and think about changing this to Tuesdays but you know that might come in the future it might not and also share this lesson with a friend if you find it useful so that's another conditional share this lesson with a friend if you find it useful so when we're using conditionals we have two clauses two parts to the conditional the if clause if something happens and then we have the result clause or the consequence of that so I what I'm saying is if you find this useful then share it with a friend and I'm using the imperative here share it with a friend I'm not saying will you share it using the will so a lot of people always think about will with conditionals but you're going to see so many examples today where we don't use will just like the example I go before when I go to weddings I wear a suit now this is a zero conditional and this is used to talk about things you normally do things that you normally do in general habits it's it's quite simple it's just saying if I do this then I do that when I do this then I do that for example I can say when my wife and I have a babysitter we normally go to a restaurant when my wife and I have a babysitter for our children we normally go to a restaurant so it's talking about what we generally do our general habits so we can think about this in terms of our daily routine as well for example when I have a late night I always feel tired in the morning when I have a late night I feel tired in the morning or when my kids aren't in school I spend time with them during the day when my kids aren't in school I spend time with them during the day now we also use a zero conditional for facts as well a simple one is if you heat water it boils or if you heat water to 100 degrees it boils or the ice cream melts when you put it in the sun ice cream melts when you put it in the sun so the zero conditional isn't one that people generally think about that much but I'm sure you use this all the time and your task right now is to think of a conditional in the zero conditional so think about your daily routine and how when one thing happens another thing happens when you stay up late what happens in the morning you might say when I stay up late I drink more coffee the next day when I stay up late I drink more coffee the next day so you're talking about general habits what you normally do now the next one the first conditional is when we're using the if clause to talk about a real situation or a realistic situation usually in the future in the future and instead of giving you a will example I'm going to give you an imperative example okay so imagine that I have this really important letter for Matthew Matthew needs to read this letter you can imagine a movie scene here where I need this letter to be read by Matthew I don't know why I put it in the passive but you are our only hope because I'm not going to see Matthew but you might see Matthew and I'll say to you if you see Matthew give him this letter if you see Matthew give him this letter this is using the imperative form here if you see Matthew give him this letter another example is imagine you have a friend who you quite like you want to be more than friends you might say something like you know we can do something if you're free later we can do something if you're free later so again we're using the word can here not the word will I'll give you a will example soon but if you're free later we we can do something if if you want to do something now another example is imagine that your parents are coming to visit and your house is a disaster you have just left things everywhere it's dirty the windows are dirty everything is so dirty you can say to your husband or wife okay if my parents come we have to clean the house if my parents come we have to clean the house again I've not given you a new example with will yet but if my parents come we have to clean the house all right I think you're ready for a will example and it's this if you don't clean the house my parents will go crazy if we don't clean the house my parents will go crazy so this is again it's a realistic situation in the future there's an if clause and then a consequence if we don't clean the house my parents will go crazy and I want to give more one more example like a movie example again you can imagine this where in the movie you might say if you ever see her again tell her that I love her if you ever see her again tell her that I love her that is my American accent if anyone is a movie agent in Hollywood send me an email [email protected] and then I want to give you one last example but using a question so imagine that you have arranged a wedding and the wedding is outside you've paid a lot of money you have all the things you need you have all the food the photographer and then you start thinking and you ask the question but what will we do if it rains what will we do if it rains so you're asking the question if it rains what will we do and as you can notice with these conditionals you can switch them around you can have the if or when clause at the start or you can have it at the end but what will we do if it rains and your partner says oh I haven't thought about that okay the second conditional the fun one this is the one where we talk about impossible or improbable situations and the number one example actually I think there were two big examples one is if I won the lottery I would buy and I'm sure you've seen this in every textbook English textbook or English course if I won the lottery I would buy a new house which you know is true probably in a lot of cases but we can do better we we can think about different things as well and actually I do want to give that lottery example as a good example of when it's impossible versus a real situation even if it's improbable because let's say that you have a lottery ticket for tonight your friend might ask you what would you buy if you win what will you buy if you win whereas you might just say if I might ask you randomly what would you buy if you won the lottery now the reason we can use the first conditional here is because you have a ticket you actually have a lottery ticket so that's probably the word realistic doesn't always make sense but it's something that is a real situation in the in the future you have a lottery ticket oh well if I win this tonight I'll buy a new house tomorrow most likely whereas that if you won the lottery what would you buy is more of a hypothetical let's fantasise about this let's have fun with this situation a question I like to ask is if you could live in any country in the world which country would you choose so if you had the ability if you could if you could live in any country in the world which country would you choose leave your answers below if there is a comment section below now going back to our letter to Matthew imagine if our friend reads this and they say to you oh my goodness I wouldn't give that letter to Matthew if I were you I wouldn't give that letter to Matthew if I were you so this is like giving advice to somebody if I were you I wouldn't take that job if I were you I wouldn't date him if I were you I would not I would never date him if I were you I would never date him now the second conditional reminds me a little bit of the would you rather questions where you give two options or maybe more options and somebody has to choose one of the options now sometimes these are strange or rude or something else but I'm just going to give you a couple of fun ones and I'll send you to a website where you can read more about it and would you rather have the ability to see 10 minutes into the future or 150 years into the future I mean that's easiest isn't it it's definitely 150 years into the future and unless you're I don't know well no definitely 150 years into the future so you can see what the world is going to be like then whereas 10 minutes I suppose you could do something like put a bet on if there's a soccer game that ends but it's kind of boring that one right here's another one would you rather labor under a hot sun or extreme cold and probably extreme cold but with really good clothes on would you rather wear the same socks for a month or the same underwear for a week hmm I'd say the same socks for a month now the same underwear for a week would you rather have a singoff with Ariana Grande or a dance off with Rihanna now a singoff is where you have a like a competition of singing and a dance off is where you have a competition of dancing and this one is easy for me a dance off with Rihanna because I would win anyway let's just go back to the second conditional another one people use this a lot in terms of if I had more time I think time and money people talk about these two if I have more time I would do this if I had more money I would do that if I had more money I would have more time hmm and if I had more time I think I would spend more time just in nature outside just doing not doing nothing we're just not feeling like I have to do something but that's the second conditional the third conditional is used to talk about impossible things or like hypothetical things similar to the second conditional but in the past so we can change the past to then change the past or we can change one part of the past and change one another part of the past and we often use use it to describe things that we regret or just just about how things would be different now the example I like to give is that I met my wife in a language school and I came out of my hostel and actually asked for I didn't ask for directions but this guy just approached me because I had a map and I was obviously not from Ecuador and he said oh where where you going so I told him the language school my first choice and he said oh go right just go right down that road and I thought no it's not I know I'm looking at my map it's the other way so I just when someone gives you directions you have to follow what they say because it's strangers isn't it going off in the other direction so anyway I followed his directions and yeah looked at my map a few minutes later and I said look I'm at option number two I'm closer to that option so I might as well great phrase great phrase I might as well might as well just go to that language school now so I did that's where I met my wife so I often say if that guy hadn't approached me so if that guy hadn't approached me I wouldn't have met my wife so I don't know who he is if you're listening to this in Ecuador and you remember this situation let me know but if that guy hadn't approached me I wouldn't have met my wife so we're talking about how you change one situation in the past and what that consequence is in the past as well now I'm going to give you the typical example that you see in textbooks are you ready are you ready for this if I had brought my umbrella I wouldn't have got wet if I had brought my umbrella I wouldn't have got wet now the only way I see people use this is in a very um sarcastic way like where a parent says to the kid okay it might rain take your umbrella or it's going to rain take an umbrella and the the child says no no I don't need an umbrella and the mum or the dad says come on just take an umbrella with you just in case if it doesn't rain don't use it if it rains you have your umbrella no I'm not taking my umbrella I don't need my umbrella and then the the child comes back 10 minutes later soaked soaked and you say well if you're taking an umbrella you wouldn't have got wet I think the second most typical example here is if I had studied harder I would have passed the exam if I had studied harder I would have passed the exam so those are two examples I'm sure you've heard before the quite good examples in the sense that they really focus in on specific things that make sense for using the third conditional but I'm going to give you a another another movie experience one now because imagine your friend gives that letter to Matthew and then you never hear from Matthew again because that letter was just terrible they didn't make any sense so you can say oh if I hadn't given that letter to Matthew maybe he would have forgiven me if I hadn't given that letter to Matthew maybe he would have forgiven me now sometimes where you are not completely certain that changing the past would change the past so you might say something like well if I'd studied harder I might have passed the exam if I had studied harder I might have passed the exam or with more intonation I'll give it to you with more intonation if I had studied harder I might have passed the exam I might I might have passed the exam not quite sure I might have done it but maybe not or oh I could have come to the party if you had told me so this person didn't tell me about this party and I don't like to miss parties but maybe I was unavailable so I could have come to the party if you had told me or I would have come to the party if you had told me which is a lot stronger and then I want to give you a question example you might say so would you have passed the exam if you had studied harder would you have passed the exam if you had studied harder maybe okay so those are the various conditionals in English but wait there's more there are more conditionals there are some the these conditionals called mixed conditionals and I'm not going to go into too much depth here I'll leave a link to a video I made on this but I'm just going to give you a couple of examples and a great example is if I had bought bitcoin in 2011 I would be rich now so this is how the past effects of present if I had bought bitcoin in 2011 the past I would be rich now the present or if that guy hadn't have given me the wrong directions in equino if he hadn't have given me the wrong directions then I wouldn't be in America now so this is a fun one where you can think about how the past affects the present and you can also have ones where the past affects the future or the your future your current situation affects the future those types of things or your current situation affects past again I'll leave a link to the lesson I made on that so then you can go through that quite slowly and have a good look at the examples so the zero first second and third conditionals we use these a lot in English and they're fun to use like I said before the zero conditional focuses on habits and facts in general what you normally do the first one talks about a future situation a realistic future situation the second one is more about hypothetical situations or improbable ones and then the third is about things in the past which is again a fun one to use so again if you found this useful here's a conditional then please share it with a friend so just click that share button send it by messenger send it by iPhone message or post it to a Facebook group share the love share this with more people and if you're listening on Spotify hello if you're listening on Apple iTunes hello to you and if you're listening on YouTube hello YouTubers good to have you here so again I hope you found it useful and it's great having you here with me like I said we release a lesson about once a week I say about once a week every week we might start doing it on Tuesday soon let me know what you think about that and yeah if you're new here subscribe to these lessons thanks again for being here and I'll speak to you soon bye bye