Hello everyone and welcome back to English with Lucy. Today, very exciting, I have a grammar lesson for you. We are going to discuss the four conditionals.
This is a very, very important lesson. I know that this is a topic that lots of my students struggle with. There's so much to remember. But hopefully I can clarify lots of your doubts today. To help you even further, I have created a PDF which covers everything we're going to talk about and it also has a quiz.
So you can practise what you've learnt and you can check your understanding. If you would like to download that free PDF and quiz, all you've got to do is click on the link in the description box, you enter your name and your email address, you sign up to my mailing list and you can download the quiz. and I will send that PDF and quiz directly to your inbox. After that, every week, as soon as I've made the PDF for each lesson, as soon as it becomes available, you will receive it in your inbox. It's automatic and very convenient, and it means every week you get lovely new activities and PDFs to review.
Don't be afraid to share your results in the comments section. Right, let's get started with the grammar lesson. So, we're going to talk about The four conditionals. We have the zero conditional, the first conditional, the second conditional, and can you guess what the last conditional is?
Congratulations, it's the third conditional. Each conditional sentence has an if clause and a main clause. With all conditional sentences, the order of these clauses is not fixed, so you can swap them around. If I practise, I will get better.
I will get better if I practice. It doesn't matter which way, but when you change the order of the clauses, the meaning is the same. Now we've got that introduction out of the way, let's start with the zero conditional. A zero conditional sentence consists of two present simple verbs. One is in the if clause and one is in the main clause.
Both parts of the sentence are in the present tense. Nice and easy. If this thing happens, That thing happens. Or that thing happens if this thing happens.
We use the zero conditional to talk about general truths. When in general there is a guaranteed result like scientific facts. If you heat water, it evaporates. That's a scientific fact. We're not talking about specific conditions on that day or anything.
In general, if you heat water, it evaporates. Interestingly, you can usually replace if with when or whenever without the meaning changing. When I am happy, I smile.
I smile when I'm happy. Remember that when we use the word you in zero conditionals, we are often talking about people in general, not you in particular. If you melt ice, it becomes a liquid. Let's take a look at some examples.
If I'm sad, I eat chocolate. People die if they don't drink enough water. If dogs get angry, they growl.
If you don't eat enough, you lose weight. If British people get bored, they talk about the weather. That's a scientific fact. We often use the zero conditional to give instructions with the imperative in the main clause.
If she rings the doorbell, tell her to go away. Text me if you get lost. Okay. Before we move on to the first conditional, I want you to check your understanding in that PDF to make sure you've grasped everything, you've understood everything.
Right, let's move on to the first conditional. The first conditional has the pre- present simple after if, and then the future in the main clause. If this thing happens, that thing will happen.
We use the first conditional to talk about things that might happen in the future. We can't know for sure what will happen in the future, but we can use the first conditional to talk about things that will probably be true. With the zero conditional, we spoke in general, but with the first conditional, we speak about the real world and about specific situations.
Some examples. If we don't leave now, we will miss the train. If you study hard, you will pass the exam. If I see my boss, I'll ask her. Contraction of I will, I'll.
I'll ask her. If it gets colder, we'll light a fire. I'll finish my painting if I have time.
Now, it's important to consider modals when it comes to the first conditional. You can use modals in the main clause in place of will to express a recommendation, a degree of certainty, permission. Take a look. If we don't leave now, we might miss the train if you study hard you could pass the exam if i see my boss i shall ask her if it gets colder we should light a fire i'll be able to finish my painting if i have time right let's move on to the second conditional The second conditional uses the past simple after if, then would and the infinitive, that's the most common, or would and the present continuous.
And I'll explain this later as sometimes this gets left out of lessons, but I think it's important that you see it in case you come across it and think, what's that? If this thing happened, that thing would happen. Or, if this thing happened, that thing would be happening. We can use the second conditional to talk about things in the future that are probably not going to be true. We often use it to talk about dreams and fantasies.
For example, if I won the lottery, I would buy a house in Barbados. Or, if he had more money, he would buy a boat. We can also use the second conditional to talk about things in the present that are impossible.
In this case, it's very common to use I were instead of I was. If I were you, I would stop poking the cat. I can't be you, it's impossible.
But if I were you, I would stop that. It's a good way of giving advice or a warning. If he were younger, I would ask him out. It's impossible, he can't be younger, so I'm not going to ask him out.
If I was taller, I would wear high heels. You can choose between I was and I were. I were sounds a little more formal.
I've got a little extra bit of homework for you. I want you to answer it in the comment section down below. I want you to answer this question.
If you were an animal, which one would you be and why? If I were an animal, I would be a fruit bat because I'm completely addicted to fruit. Let me know, I'm so excited to see what you come up with. You always surprise me. Now let's talk about that continuous.
Now for the slightly complicated bit. In second conditional sentences, the continuous form of the present conditional can be used. If this thing happened, that thing would be happening. If I spoke French, I would be living in Paris.
I don't speak French, so I couldn't be living in Paris right now. If I had an exam tomorrow, I would be revising right now. It's not so common, but it's important that you know about it. Let's move on to the last one, the third conditional. I can't believe we're here already.
We use the third conditional to talk about the past. It's used to talk about a situation that did not happen and to imagine the results of this imaginary situation. We use if and past perfect and then would.
have and past participle in the main clause. If this thing had happened, that thing would have happened. If I had studied harder, I would have passed the exam, but I didn't study hard enough, so I didn't pass the exam.
If we had left earlier, we wouldn't have arrived late. You wouldn't be so tired if you had gone to bed earlier. I hope that's enough.
Right, that is it for my lesson on conditionals. There is more to conditionals. Maybe we'll cover that another day, but I think that gives you a really strong foundation.
Now I want you to test your learning. I have created a quiz for you. It goes through zero, first, second, and third conditionals.
The quiz is on the the PDF, which has got all of the information from today's lesson. Just click on the link in the description box, enter your name and email address. You sign up to my mailing list and you will receive the PDF directly in your inbox.
And then each week you will receive my PDF lessons as soon as they're available. If you would like to improve your vocabulary and your listening skills, then I should just remind you that I have my vlogging channel where I vlog my daily life here. on a farm in the English countryside.
And every single vlog is completely subtitled for your understanding. So you can pick up lots of words because I show a lot of daily tasks, things that you can use that are relevant to you. Don't forget to connect with me on my social media.
I've got my Instagram at Lucy and I have my website, englishwithlucy.co.uk where I have a really cool pronunciation tool. You can click on a phoneme and hear me say it and hear me say words that contain that phoneme. I will see you soon for another lesson.