MIXED CONDITIONALS - English Grammar Lesson - Mixed Verb Tenses in If-Clauses - Advanced Grammar

Hello and welcome back.

This lesson is all about mixed

conditionals.

It comes from a request by three viewers –

Przemek, Nihar (from Odisha, India) and Olivia Ornelas.

Before we start, if you want to request a lesson, just

leave a comment.

In your comment, tell me your name

and I will mention you in the video.

Alright, so in this lesson, I will teach you about mixed

conditionals in both real and unreal situations (unreal

means imaginary).

There are exercises in this lesson for

you to understand and practice.

OK first, let’s start with the most basic

type of conditional – the real conditional.

Take a look at this example: “If it rains on Saturday,

we’ll cancel the picnic.”

So what do you understand by

that?

Well, you know that there’s a picnic planned for

Saturday, and if it rains, we cannot go on the picnic, so

we’ll cancel it.

This is the most common type of conditional: on the

condition side – we call it a condition clause, you have

‘if’ plus the subject plus the verb in the present

simple tense.

So, you have ‘if’ and ‘it rains’ which is

present simple.

On the result side (in the result clause),

you have ‘subject’ plus ‘will’.

So – ‘we’ll cancel’ (or we will cancel) ‘the

picnic.’

This is called a real conditional.

It’s also called the first conditional

but the number is not important – what’s important

is that it talks about a real situation – a situation that

is possible.

So about mixed conditionals?

Well, the term ‘mixed’ just means that a sentence is in a

different form – not the usual form.

So, you could say “If it rains on Saturday,

we’ll have to cancel the picnic.”

(so instead of will plus the main verb, here you

have ‘will have to’) or you could say “If it rains on

Saturday, could you bring some umbrellas?”

or maybe I just saw the weather forecast

on the news and I say “How are we going to have a picnic

if it rains on Saturday?”

These are all correct, and they’re some examples of

mixed real conditionals.

Remember: we say that they’re mixed because they’re not in

the common form.

OK, let’s do a small exercise with this.

Here are some sentences.

But I’ve jumbled them up.

Stop the video, try to put them in the right

order, then play the video again and check.

Alright, number one is “If you don’t

mind, could you speak a little more slowly, please?”

Number two is “If Rob wants to get into a top university,

he needs to work harder.”

And number three is “When you

leave the house, remember to lock the front door.”

In conditional sentences, it’s

always OK to put the if- clause last – if you did

that, no problem.

OK, notice, in number three – you have ‘when’ instead of

‘if’.

The difference is that ‘if’ means something may

happen or it may not happen – so “If you leave the house,”

would mean you may or may not leave the house.

But ‘when’ expresses the idea that you

are going to leave the house (I’m sure), and when you

leave the house, remember to lock the front door.

So you can see here that these are

all mixed real conditionals – they all talk about real

situations but they’re in different forms.

Let’s now move on and talk about unreal conditionals.

What do I mean by unreal?

Unreal refers to situations that are imaginary.

Take these two sentences: “If I

win the lottery, I will quit my job.”

and “If I won the lottery, I would quit my

job.”

You will recognize the first sentence as a real

conditional.

So imagine that I have bought a lottery

ticket.

And the results are coming out tomorrow, so I

have my fingers crossed, I hope I win.

And if I win, I’ll go into my boss’s office

and say “I quit”.

So you have ‘if’ and present simple in

the condition, and ‘will’ in the result.

But number two is different.

It’s an unreal or an imaginary situation.

You have ‘If’ plus the past tense (“I

won the lottery”) in the condition and ‘would’ instead

of ‘will’ in the result.

So it means I have no lottery

ticket, but I’m dreaming.

I’m saying “I hate my job.

If I won the lottery someday, I

would quit.”

This type of sentence is called the second

conditional – it talks about an imaginary situation in the

future (like in this sentence) or in the present –

for example “If I weren’t so busy, I would take a

vacation.”

So it means “I cannot take a vacation

because I am very busy.”

Notice that we use ‘were’ in the second conditional – if

the verb is ‘be’ in the condition clause, we change

it to ‘were’ and not ‘was’.

That’s just a special grammar rule with the second

conditional.

You can also talk about the past using unreal

conditionals.

Remember my lottery ticket?

Let’s say I bought a ticket but I didn’t

win.

So I might say “Oh!

If I had won the lottery, I would

have quit my job.”

That means I bought a ticket, and when

the results came out, I didn’t get it.

So I’m dreaming but about the past

this time.

Or in this next example – “If Ramya had told

me it was her birthday today, I would have bought her a

present.”

What does that mean?

It means it’s Ramya’s birthday today but she did

not tell me and I didn’t know; so I didn’t buy her a

birthday present.

But thinking back to the past I

can say “If she had told me, then I would have got her a

present.”

This is called the third conditional – it is an unreal

conditional that talks about the past.

You make it with ‘If’ plus the past perfect

tense (using had + the verb in past participle form) in

the condition, and ‘would have’ in the result.

OK, now that you know these, let’s talk about mixed unreal

conditionals now.

I have some sentences on the screen.

The conditions are all in place,

but the results are all mixed up.

Stop the video, match the conditions to the results and

then play the video and check.

Alright, number one is “If Rob had worked harder in

school, he could have gotten into a top university.”

This is a third conditional,

meaning it’s an unreal conditional that talks about

the past.

But notice that instead of ‘would’ we have

‘could’.

You can also use might here – you can say “he

might have gotten into a top university’.

Number two is “If I had won the lottery, I would be

sitting on a beach in Hawaii right now.”

Here, you see that we have a past

condition, “If I had won the lottery, say, yesterday”, and

then we have a present result – “I would be sitting on a

beach in Hawaii right now.”

This means I didn’t win the lottery so I’m not at a

beach.

So you see that it starts like a third

conditional – past condition, but then the result part is

like a second conditional – present result.

Number three is similar – “If Renée hadn’t yelled at her

boss, she would still have a job.”

So Renée yelled at her boss and she got fired.

So she doesn’t have a job now.

Again, you have a past condition and a present

result.

Number four is “If Arjun were a smart investor, he wouldn’t

have bought those worthless shares.”

Notice here that the condition is in the present –

so it says that Arjun is not a smart investor.

And the result talks about something

he did in the past – he bought worthless shares.

Why did he buy them?

Because he’s just not smart.

Sentence number five is similar – “If I didn’t have

so much homework, I wouldn’t have stayed home.

I would’ve gone to the movies with all

my friends.”

So it means I have a lot of homework, so

because of that I was not able to go to the movies –

all my friends went, but I had to stay home and do my

homework.

And finally number six is “If I hadn’t lost my passport, I

would be going to the conference in Vienna next

week.”

So I lost my passport – that happened in the past.

And the result is in the future – I cannot go to

Vienna next week.

So these are the most common types of mixed unreal

conditionals.

There are some other combinations but

they’re not so common – the ones that you see on the

screen are the most important.

Alright, to close this lesson, I want to give you

some quick advice on learning and using conditionals.

Don’t focus so much on the words

first, second, third and mixed.

They’re useful but you need to be paying attention

to real and unreal.

If you’re talking about a real situation in the present

or future, use: If plus the present simple tense in the

condition.

In the result, you can have ‘will’ or you can

have other words such as ‘could’, ‘can’, ‘might’, or a

question.

If you’re talking about an unreal or imaginary

situation, think about the condition first.

Is it present or future?

Then use the past simple tense.

If the condition talks about

something in the past, then use the past perfect tense.

Then, think about the result.

If the result is in the present or future, use

‘would’.

If the result is in the past, use ‘would have’.

Alright, that brings us to the end of this lesson.

I hope you enjoyed it.

I will see you in the next lesson

soon.