How to use "Unless" / "As long as" / "Either" / "You'd Better" / "If..." | Advanced English Lesson!

- [Mr. Nakatomi] You broke in here to steal money?

We don't keep any cash in this building.

- Mr. Nakatomi, I'm really not interested in cash.

But I am interested in the $640 million you have in gold,

locked in your vault.

And I need the code.

- I can't give you the codes to the vault.

- Either you give me the codes,

or I shoot

this dog.

(dog barking)

- They change the codes every day.

I don't know them, they don't tell me.

- If you don't give me the codes, the dog dies.

- I'm telling you I don't have them.

- Well, unless you find me someone who does have the codes

in the next 30 seconds,

Becky here will be leaving.

- Becky just works here, she doesn't know anything.

- Well, as long as you give me the code to the vault,

Becky will be fine.

- Believe me, if I knew them, I would give them to you.

- Well, you'd better find someone who does know them quickly

or say goodbye to Becky.

- Wait, are you talking about the code to the vault?

The code's 1, 2, 3, 4.

- What?

- I know we've never changed it.

It's so dumb.

Like, anyone could just walk in here

and steal all of our money.

Who are you guys?

- How do we use these?

Well, they're very useful for ultimatums like you just saw,

or more commonly,

you can use them in your daily English life.

First, what is an ultimatum?

It's a final demand.

You're saying if you reject my demand,

then something you like might stop,

or something you really don't want to happen will happen.

So pretty much all of these expressions

deal with conditions.

Again, I have loads of videos about conditionals.

You can find them here.

But if you already know them, let's skip that.

Let's look at just giving an ultimatum with a conditional.

For example, she wants her boyfriend to stop singing.

She can give him a simple if sentence as an ultimatum.

For ultimatums, just use first or zero conditionals.

If with a present tense, that is the condition.

The result is a future.

I'm going to, I'm gonna.

I will break up with you.

That is a good ultimatum.

If you don't stop singing,

I'm gonna break up with you.

If you want to make this stronger,

you can use the zero conditional.

How do we do that?

Very easy.

You just change the future to a present tense.

It sounds better to use the continuous.

So we'll use present continuous.

I'm breaking up with you.

If you don't stop singing,

I'm breaking up with you.

See, it sounds way stronger in present tense than future.

Why?

I don't know.

It doesn't matter.

It just does.

So try to write your own ultimatum to me

using a simple conditional sentence.

For example, you want my money.

And the threat is, you're going to steal my cat.

Have fun with it, write it in the comments.

Either, I have covered this in a different video right here,

but in this context either is giving a choice.

You want to specifically say the two options,

but how would you use this every day?

For example, you stop work or class

at nine o'clock in the morning,

but it's 8:30 and you haven't eaten breakfast.

I have two choices, leave now and be hungry,

or eat breakfast and arrive late to work or my class.

Either I leave now, or I'll be late for work.

Either with present tense,

or with a future tense.

And again, if you change the future for a present tense,

it sounds way stronger, way more direct.

You definitely can say, either I leave now or I'm late.

That sounds stronger, sounds more (ehh) panicked.

What would you do?

Like would you stay have breakfast

and maybe get in trouble with your boss or your teacher

for being late?

Or would you go to work, go to class, be on time,

but you'll be hungry for the rest of the day?

What would you choose?

Let me know in the comments.

Next we have, unless.

This one is very interesting and very useful.

In general, you can use this with any tense.

Past, present, future, grammatically everything is fine.

For ultimatums though,

just stay with zero and first conditionals.

For example, let's go back to that singing breakup example.

So all we change is the if and the negative to unless.

So, unless you stop singing,

I'm gonna break up with you.

It works the same way.

Unless just replaces if with a negative, that's it.

If you don't stop singing,

unless you stop singing.

And again, you can use the future tense with the results,

or present, that's completely fine.

But just be careful how this changes.

That's the most common mistake that I see.

And you can use this with a negative.

So maybe that boyfriend could tell his friend,

"She's gonna break up with me unless I don't sing."

Why does this work?

With unless and a negative, it really means a positive.

She's gonna break up with me if I sing.

Mm, I would say the negative is not as common to use

as the positive, but it's totally fine to use in a sentence.

No problem.

And again, try your own examples

in the comments using, unless.

This time you want me to share my pizza with you

and you are threatening to not be my friend anymore.

So I need to give you some of my pizza.

This next one, as long as.

He wants to tell his girlfriend,

"If you love me, I'll be happy."

But very specifically, he wants to say,

"I need this for this to happen."

If this is the situation, then this is always the answer.

And in that context, you can change the if

to as long as.

As long as you love me, I'll be happy.

I need this for this to happen.

So she could reply,

"As long as you feed me pizza, I'll love you."

We're using present and future. That's fine, same here,

but we can change this future for a present.

As long as you love me, I'm happy or we can flip it.

I'm happy. As long as you love me.

Well, I love you.

As long as you feed me pizza,

you can use it with any tense past present future.

It doesn't matter if it makes sense.

It's good for an example, let's use a past tense.

You are very nervous about your exam today,

but your friend tells you

don't worry.

If you studied, you'll be fine.

That is the requirement for this.

So we'll change it for as long as.

as long as you studied,

you'll be fine.

You need to have studied as long as you studied.

And finally, you'd better.

This is just another version of you should. And remember,

should it's not the same as must. It's not a rule.

You're just saying, eh, it's a good idea to do this thing.

Or literally it's better to do this thing.

Like if you are Italian and your girlfriend brings you

pineapple pizza, maybe you're thinking,

oh no,

my girlfriend sucks. I better break up with her.

That is had not would.

I had better.

The next verb is infinitive.

Break,do,go, drink, whatever.

It's the infinitive that verb one form that never changes

for he, she, it, that doesn't become breaks new.

And the meaning is the same as should. It's a good idea.

It's better to do this thing.

Oh no. My dog is sick.

I'd better take him to the vet.

So using: you'd better.

Give me some advice. What had I better do?

Let me know in the comments. Okay.

Yeah.

You're probably not going to Rob a bank or give ultimatums

every day,

but maybe you noticed you can use these for many other

contexts in your daily English, but also very importantly,

if you are planning to take a Cambridge exam, like:

FCE, CAE,

CPE, they have a use of English section.

And in that section, there's a key word transformation bit.

If you've never done this, this is what it looks like.

You have a sentence like this,

then they want you to keep the meaning of that sentence,

but change the words around and use this word

like this.

All right. For example, let's do this one together.

The example sentence is, unless you give me pizza,

I'll break up with you and it wants you to change that

sentence, but keep the meaning and use the expression.

As long as.

You should be perfect with this.

I have a lot of confidence in you.

I'll give you five seconds to say Beyonce.

Did you get it? Okay.

The condition is you give me pizza.

And the results of that is no breakup.

So how do we change it easy, right?

As long as you give me pizza, I won't break up with you.

Okay? In the comments, write me an ultimatum.

Like you're going to break up with me unless I do something

or I don't know you're going to break my legs.

If I don't do something, I don't know.

Be creative, use one or all of these expressions,

practice your ultimatums in the comments.

If you need more practice with these expressions,

this is available in my ebook.

You can get it on patrion.com/pepperteachme.

the link is in the description.

See in the next class.