Lesson Transcript

Hi, everybody. My name is Alisha. In this lesson, I'm going to talk about the differences between the second conditional and the third conditional in English. Let's get started.
First, I want to talk about the second conditional. First, let's talk about how we make the second conditional. The second conditional and the third conditional has two parts. There's an "if" part or an if-clause, and a main clause. So, the "if" part of the sentence is the part of the sentence that uses "if." So, we can begin the sentence or the question with the if-clause, and finish with the main clause, or we can reverse it. So, that means we can start with the main clause and end with the "if" clause. Either is fine, it's up to you. If you want to know like the difference in feeling, the first part of the sentence tends to have the focus. That's the thing that has the most importance in the sentence.
So, when we make the second conditional the pattern we use is "if," plus subject, plus past tense verb, past tense verb. This is a key point. This makes the if-clause. Then, for the main clause, we use "would" or "wouldn't," plus a verb in the infinitive form. So, the infinitive form of a verb is the dictionary form of the verb. There's no changes to that. So, "if," something, "would" or "wouldn't," something. This is used to describe unreal situations. So, this is specifically for unreal situations that are unlikely to happen. So, I made a video about the differences between the first conditional and the second conditional. Maybe if you've seen that one, you know when we use the first conditional, we're talking about something that is likely to happen. There's a chance of that thing happening. With the second conditional, however, we just want to imagine a situation. We want to talk about an unreal situation with a low possibility of happening. We're just imagining things. Also, the second conditional refers to the present. So, that means we do not use this when we talk about the past, we don't use this when we talk about the future. We imagine unreal situations now with the second conditional.
So, let's look at some example sentences and example questions that use the second conditional. First, "If you changed jobs, what job would you choose?" "If you changed jobs, what job would you choose?" So, here, "changed." "Changed" is my past tense verb. "If you changed jobs," so this is my if-clause, then my main clause is a question. That's okay to do. I've got this here. This main clause can be a question as well. "What job would you choose?" So, here, I'm using "choose." This is my verb, yes. Although, "you" comes after "would," because I'm making a question, yeah. So, "choose," infinitive form of the verb here after "would." "If you change jobs, what job would you choose?"
So, for a lot of these examples, I've created questions. Because in the previous lesson, I made a lot of statements, statement examples. So, you can check the previous lesson for some more statement examples. But, for this lesson, I've made a lot of questions to practice with the second conditional. Just a reminder then, when you respond to these questions, use the pattern subject, "would" or "wouldn't," in some cases, plus the infinitive verb form. So, for example, "I would choose," job title. "I would choose teacher," "I would choose doctor," "I would choose lawyer," and so on. So, make sure you follow this pattern in your response using "would" or "wouldn't." In most cases, you'll probably use "would," not "wouldn't." But, in some cases, it's possible you may use "wouldn't."
Okay. Let's look at a statement. A statement or rather a conditional statement. "If my roommate forgot to pay rent, I would be angry." "If my roommate forgot to pay rent, I would be angry." So, again, "if my," if-clause here. "If," subject, "my roommate," is the subject here. "If my roommate forgot…" "Forgot" is the past tense form of the verb "forget." "If my roommate forgot to pay rent," so this part, this is the object of the verb "forgot." So, "if my roommate forgot to pay rent," I have to have something here with this verb. This completes my if-clause. Then, "I would be angry," I would be angry. So, we follow this pattern here. "I would be," infinitive verb, "I would be angry." I would be angry. I end with an adjective in this case.
Another example, another question. In this case, I've flipped or swapped or switched the order here. So, the main clause comes first, the if-clause comes second. In these cases, you'll notice there's no comma between the two. If you begin your sentence with the if-clause, use a comma. Use a comma for the introductory clause. If you don't, no comma is necessary. So, this one, "What would you do if you lost your wallet?" "What would you do if you lost your wallet?" So, again, the main clause, "what would you do…" "What would you do," is a question. That's our question here. We follow this same pattern. "Would," plus the infinitive form of the verb. "What would you do…" and my if-clause, "if you," subject "you," "if you lost your wallet." So, "your wallet" is the object of the verb "lost" in this sentence. "What would you do if you lost your wallet?" is how a native speaker would ask this question. And, again, when you answer it, "I would go to the police," or "I would cry." Whatever your answer is, it follows the same subject "would" or "wouldn't," plus infinitive verb pattern.
Okay. On to the next example, "If your co-worker suddenly quit, how would you continue your projects?" "If your co-worker suddenly quit, how would you continue your projects?" So, this "quit" means quit his or her job. So, "quit," we can understand to mean leaving a position. So, "if your co-worker," and here, I've used another word to modify quit. So, that means not just quit, but suddenly. So, it's a surprise. Something unexpected. "If your co-worker suddenly quit," here's my if-clause, "how would you continue your project?" So, in what way would you continue, infinitive verb here, "continue your projects."
Okay. Last example for this part then. "If you got married, how would your parents react?" "If you got married, how would your parents react?" Again, "get married" becomes "got married," past tense form of this verb. "If you got married," that's my if-clause. Main clause, "how would your parents react?" So, here's my "would," and my infinitive verb here is "react." How would your parents react? "They would be so happy," or, "They would be surprised," or, "They would be shocked." So, you can make a lot of different sentences, a lot of different questions, with the second conditional. But, please remember, this refers to the present, and it refers to unreal situations that are unlikely to happen. So, all of these are situations we don't imagine are going to happen now. We just want to talk about them. So, there's a very low chance of these things happening.
Okay. Let's continue then to the third conditional. The second part of this lesson is about the third conditional. The third conditional is made in a different way from the second conditional. The third conditional, we follow this part, again, if-clause, main clause structure. So, "if," plus subject, then a key difference here, we use the past perfect here. Past perfect verb form. So, that means "have," plus past participle. So, this part past perfect, this part over here, second conditional is simple past tense. This is a key difference. This creates our if-clause. In our main clause then, we follow with the same "would" or "wouldn't." And then, we end with the past participle form of a verb. So, this part and this part, these are the key differences between the second conditional and the third conditional in terms of making the sentence. So, we use the third conditional to express regret and to describe unreal situations. So, that means we're referring to the past. So, expressing regret refers to expressing sadness or disappointment because of a past action or because a past action did not happen. So, when we're using the third conditional, we're talking about the past, and it's something that did not happen in the past. So, we want to talk about a different situation, past possible situation. So, this is a very common way to express regret and disappointment.
Finally, with this conditional, with the third conditional, we can use "could" and "couldn't," and "may" and "might" or "might not" in place of "would" and "wouldn't" here. So, we can create some different sentences. But, let's take a look at a few examples, and then we'll kind of look at how we might substitute "could" and "couldn't," and "may" and "might" throughout.
So, let's take a look at the first one. "If I had known you were in trouble, I would have helped you." "If I had known you were in trouble, I would have helped you." So, what's happening here? "If I," okay here's our subject with "if." Great. "Had known," had known. So, this is my past perfect structure. "If I had known you were in trouble," so notice this is also a past expression. "If I had known you were in trouble," in the past, this is my if-clause, "I would have helped you." So, here, "I would have helped you." So, again, we have this past participle form. So, "would," plus past participle, "I would have helped you. So, by past participle, I mean we include this past perfect structure, "would have," "would not have," and so on. So, "I would have helped you."
So, this means the speaker did not help the listener. The speaker wants to express they did not know the listener was in trouble. But, if they had, this would have been the plan. So, they did not know the speaker was in trouble, they did not help the speaker. Now, they're saying, "Oh, I regret that. If I had known…" So, if I had had that information, I would have helped you. So, we're imagining this unreal situation in the past. We're expressing our regret about that. So, this is an example where we could use "could" here. "If I had known you were in trouble, I could have helped you." So, "could" express this possibility. "I could have helped you," it would have been possible for me to help you. So, we could substitute "could" there.
I would not recommend using "might" here. It sounds like I'm -- it would say, "I might have helped you." So, if I had known you were in trouble, I might have helped you. It sounds like, "Oh, my friend was in trouble. And, maybe, I would have helped. I don't know." So, that choice really makes a big difference in the nuance of the sentence. So, it's grammatically correct, yes. But, it sounds like there's only a chance you would have helped your friend, or the listener, in this case. So, "would have helped you" means 100%, "could have" means possible, and "might have" means maybe 40 to 60% chance.
Okay. Let's continue on to the next example. "If he had given me the update sooner, he…" -- I'm sorry. "If he had given me the update sooner, we would have been more prepared," we would have been more prepared. So, this one uses this comparative "sooner." "If he had given me the update sooner, we would have been more prepared." This is very common with the third conditional. We use comparatives. So, this means the speaker received an update actually. But, the speaker wants to say, if he, this other person, had given the speaker the update sooner than he did. So, that means maybe the speaker received the information at 12 o'clock, but if the speaker had received the information at 10 o'clock, sooner than the information was actually received, we would have been more prepared.
So, again, we have a comparative here, "more prepared." So, that means more prepared than we were. So, if you can imagine in a situation where there's a meeting at like one o'clock, and there's a team of people. One person, this he, is responsible for sharing some information. He shares the information at 12 o'clock, and the team rushes to prepare for the meeting. The speaker here wants to express, "if he had given the information sooner," so like in my example, 10 o'clock, "the team would have been more prepared." So, because they would have had more time to prepare, like three hours instead of one hour. So, this is something that we use to express regret and to express disappointment. And also, like to share with our teammates, in this case, how we can improve situations for the future. So, that's a case where you might hear something like this. We use the comparative form to express that.
So, if we don't have the comparative form, "If he had given me the update, we would have been prepared." So, that means there was no update at all. And that, at the end of the sentence, means the meeting or the team was not prepared for the meeting at all. So, including these comparative forms really makes a big difference. So, please consider this time frames when you're expressing regret with this.
Okay. On to the next one, "If you had made a reservation, we wouldn't have had to wait." This is a very common one. You can use this at restaurants. "If you had made a reservation," so this comes from the expression to make a reservation. To make a reservation for a restaurant, or for a hotel, or bar. "If you had made," so this is my past perfect, "had made a reservation," here's my if-clause, "we wouldn't have had to wait." So, "wouldn't" here, "would not." And then, my past participle expression, my past participle. So, past perfect and past participle. "We wouldn't have had to wait." So, this expression means the group here, "we," we did wait. We had to wait. But, if you had made a reservation in the past, you didn't. But, if you did, if you had, we wouldn't have had to wait. So, this means we waited and we're not happy about it, probably. But, if you had made a reservation, we wouldn't have had to wait. So, again, this is used to express like unhappiness with a current situation, and to tell someone what to do next time. So, in this case, make a reservation. Next time is like -- this is like an indirect way of saying that. So, "If you'd made a reservation, we wouldn't have to wait." That's how a native speaker would complain with this expression.
Okay. On to the next one. For this next one, I've switched the main clause and the if-clause position. Again, we can change these according to the focus of the sentence. "We wouldn't have missed our flight if you had been on time." "We wouldn't have missed our flight if you had been on time." Here, again, "we wouldn't have missed." So, this same "wouldn't" pattern appears at the beginning of the sentence now because the main clause comes first. "Have missed," so here's my past participle verb with "have." So, again, a past perfect structure. "We wouldn't have missed our flight," we wouldn't have missed our flight. So, that means we did miss our flight, we did. "If you had been on time," if you had been on time, that means the listener was not on time. So, we expressed that with "if you had been," past perfect structure, "If you had been on time." So, in this case, the listener was not on time, as a result, the two people missed their flight. A native speaker would probably say this sentence very angrily. They would say, "We wouldn't have missed our flight if you'd been on time." That's how we would say it at native speed. So, this "wouldn't have missed." It sounds like "would'nuh," would'nuh. We reduce it to something very short. "We 'would'nuh' missed our flight if you'd been on time." You can hear this part too gets reduced. "If you had been on time" becomes "if you'd." "If you'd been on time," if you'd been on time. "We would'nuh missed our flight if you'd been on time." So, someone probably very irritated would say this expression.
Alright. On to the last one. The last one is a question example, "If you had been offered a promotion last year, what would you have done?" "If you had been offered a promotion last year, what would you have done?" So, again, this sentence means last year, the listener was not offered a promotion. We just want to imagine it. So, "If you had been offered a promotion last year, what would you have done?" So, again, this is not a real situation in the past, but we want to imagine what could have happened. So, what would you have done? When we respond with this, we can simply use a main clause to respond. "I would have," past participle verb form. So, we follow this same structure, the same "have," plus past participle verb. So, "I would have accepted the promotion," or "I would have rejected the promotion," or "I would have negotiated." So, we follow this main clause pattern. Yes, you can say the full sentence. Like, "If I had been offered a promotion last year, I would have accepted." But, when we're speaking, like in conversation, we all understand the "if" part, like continues. You don't have to repeat the "if" part. Just say the main clause here.
So, this is the third conditional. This is the key, maybe some key situations, some types of situation where we would use the third conditional. You'll notice it's used for complaints, to express irritation, to express frustration, regret, disappointment. So, it's not the happiest grammar point, but it is very useful. So, it is quite different from the second conditional, which we use to talk about unreal situations with a low likelihood of happening. Thanks very much for watching this lesson, and I will see you again soon. Bye-bye.

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