Mixed Conditionals — The Unreal Past | English Grammar Practice

Without a doubt. In your years of English practice,

you've studied the conditionals. Right now, your brain might be racing,

thinking conditionals, conditional. Oh,

I think there's a first and a second. You're exactly right. In fact,

we have four conditional forms in English. The zero, first, second,

and third, and now I've got a twist.

We also have mixed conditionals, as you might guess,

a mixed conditional mixes the forms or structures of

the other conditionals. Let's take a look at an example sentence.

If we had downloaded the directions before we lost our signal,

we wouldn't be lost. Right now in this sentence,

I've combined the third and the second conditional forms.

Now again,

I know your brain might be racing and you're thinking this sounds really

confusing, and do I really need this? I hear you.

Conditionals can be tricky. However,

I'm going to walk through this with you step by step and give you ample examples

so that you understand why you want to use mixed conditionals in your English

conversations and how to use them with accuracy. By the end of this lesson,

you'll be ready to use them with more confidence,

so get a notebook and a pen or pencil and get ready to take some notes and at

the end I've got an extra special bonus to help you practice.

But very quickly, if this is your first time here, welcome. I'm Annemarie,

an English confidence and fluency coach.

Everything I do is designed to help you get the confidence you want for your

life and work in English. If you'd love more free resources and lessons from me,

including lessons I have on the zero, first, second and third conditionals,

you can find hundreds of my Confident English lessons at my Speak Confident

English website. While you're there,

you can also download my in-depth training called How to Get the

Confidence to Say What You Want In English. In that training,

I share my number one fluency and confidence building strategy or

if you would love to learn, practice,

speak and make progress in your English with me,

be sure to check out my Confident Women Community to start this lesson. Today.

I want to briefly refresh your memory of the zero first,

second and third conditional so that we have those correct structures in your

mind because we'll be using them as we continue into the mixed conditional

forms.

I also want to talk about why mixed conditionals are so useful.

Then we'll get into three specific reasons You'll want to use the mixed

conditionals and I'll be giving you examples.

Let's talk briefly about the four conditional structures.

Why do we have them and we'll look at an example sentence for each.

One reason we use the zero conditional is it helps us talk about

routines, facts, and truths. For example,

if you heat ice, it melts,

the first conditionals are used for present or future

situations that are likely or possible. For instance,

we might use them to make a promise to someone or give someone a morning.

If you cook dinner tonight, I will do the dishes.

When we transition to the second conditional form,

we are not just changing our structure but we're also changing our focus.

Instead of thinking about likely or possible present and future

situations, we're thinking about unlikely, unreal,

maybe even impossible present or future situations.

We use this when we want to express a wish for an alternate

reality. For example,

if I had one extra hour in the day, I would spend my time painting.

Now of course I can't add to time, I can't change time.

Time is fixed. I have 24 hours a day just like you do,

but I can wish for an alternate reality and I express that wish

through the second conditional form and now the third conditional form

focuses on the past the unreal past.

We think about a situation that didn't happen in the past but we

wish it did.

This allows us to express regrets over past actions or decisions.

For example, if you had told me that you needed help,

I would've canceled my trip and stayed home to help you. In that sentence,

I'm expressing that I wish something else had happened in the past.

Unfortunately it didn't.

Now if you want to get in depth lessons on each one of those conditional forms,

I've got lessons on all of them at my Speak Confident English website.

I'll leave links in the notes below as well.

So now why do we need the mixed conditionals if we already have these other

four?

Each of those four conditionals focuses on situations or actions that

happened within a specific timeframe. For example,

the first conditional is focused on the present or future that is likely

the second conditional is also focused on the present or future,

but unlikely or even impossible. The third conditional focused on the past.

However, sometimes something that happens in the past also

influences or impacts the current moment.

Mixed conditionals allow us to demonstrate that they allow us to transition

through time or connect those past decisions with something that is

happening in the moment or something that could happen.

Let's walk through this step by step.

I'm going to share with you three sentences,

the first and the second conditional, then the third, and then a mixed form.

To do this,

I want you to imagine two people going on a road trip and they're traveling to

somewhere somewhat remote. For example,

if you're in my area and you're visiting big Surf for the first time,

there are places on that drive where you will lose your cell phone signal.

So here's my first sentence in the second conditional form,

if we had a good signal, we could download the directions.

Now in this sentence we're focused on the unreal present.

The truth is we don't have a good signal right now so we can't download the

directions and perhaps as a result we're lost.

This is all focused on the unreal present.

Now let's say you've arrived at your destination,

you've had some time to relax,

it's the next day and you're telling someone a story about your drive.

Yesterday,

if we had downloaded our directions before losing the signal,

we would not have gotten lost. Here I'm focused on the unreal past.

I can't change yesterday, it's already finished,

but I can definitely express some regret over what happened or maybe some

frustration, some annoyance.

The third conditional allows me to focus on that unreal past

and now we're going to mix them.

If we had downloaded the directions before losing our signal,

we wouldn't be lost.

Here I'm focused on the unreal past.

At some point in the past we didn't download our directions.

Maybe it was 30 minutes ago, maybe one hour ago, maybe it was yesterday,

and now that we don't have the signal we're lost in this moment,

that past action has impacted our present moment.

This is why mixed conditionals are helpful.

Sometimes our past decisions or past events influence

the present moment when we are focused on conditionals that highlight the

unreal past and their influence on an unreal

present or future.

To accurately use this specific type of a mixed conditional,

we have a form or structure that we want to follow In the if

clause we start with the third conditional structure.

If plus the past, perfect.

If I had packed my sunscreen,

then we add wood followed by the base form of the verb.

This is a part of the second conditional form.

I wouldn't have a sunburn right now.

In addition to using the if plus past perfect plus wood plus

base form of the verb,

we have a second structure we can also use to help emphasize an

unreal present or future. For example,

I want you to imagine you're having a conversation with a friend who a few

months ago said no to a job offer. It was a really good job offer,

but it would require her to move to a new city and she didn't want to

move.

You might be having a conversation with her right now and in that

conversation you might say, if you had accepted that job offer,

you would be moving across the country right now or you would be moving

across the country next week. How are you feeling? Are you happy you stayed?

Are you happy with your decision? For this example,

I've changed the structure just a bit.

I'm still using the if plus past perfect for that unreal past and then

it's followed by wood plus the two be verb and an ING verb.

You would be moving.

I want to share with you several more example sentences,

real sentences that someone might use to illustrate these structures and then

we'll talk about three specific reasons.

You'll want to use this type of a mixed conditional.

Here are four more sentences that focus on the unreal past with the

unreal present or future. If I had learned French as a kid,

I would have a perfect French accent right now,

unfortunately neither of those are true.

It's an unreal past and an unreal present.

If she hadn't received the scholarship,

she wouldn't be going to Harvard right now. Thank goodness she got it.

If I hadn't spent all my bonus right away,

I would have enough money saved to go to New York City with you next month and

now this last example.

Imagine someone saying it in the middle of running a marathon.

If I hadn't trained as much as I did, this would feel more difficult,

but I feel great right now.

Before we get into three specific reasons to use these mixed conditionals,

I have one last tip.

Like all conditional forms we can reverse the clauses in the sentence.

One of my examples was if I had remembered to pack my sunscreen,

I wouldn't have a sunburn right now and I can reverse those with.

I wouldn't have this sunburn right now if I had remembered to pack my sunscreen.

For the remainder of this lesson,

I want to highlight how we use this mixed conditional form to indicate missed

opportunities and past regrets that have an impact on the present or

future.

We also use this mixed conditional to share assumptions about what we think

would be different right now and we can use it to express willingness

or to give advice.

Be sure to stick with me to the end because I also want to share with you a

special bonus I have to help you practice. As I highlighted earlier,

we can use the third conditional to highlight a past regret,

something that we wish had been different about the past.

We can also use mixed conditionals to highlight those missed opportunities and

the reality that that missed opportunity or regret influences or

has an impact on our present or future. For example,

she would be able to pay off her house right now if she had invested in that

stock when you told her to.

The truth is she didn't invest when you told her to,

and as a result she doesn't have all the money right now to pay off her house

the way she wants. If my daughter hadn't missed her flight yesterday,

I wouldn't need to spend extra money on a ticket.

If I had pursued art at a younger age,

I would probably be a better artist now,

but better late than never because we can use more than one conditional

to express regret.

I want to compare how I might express regret using the second

conditional and how I would do it in the mixed conditional form.

This first sentence is going to be in the second conditional form.

If I spoke Spanish now,

I wouldn't need to rely on a translator. Now again,

the second conditional focuses on unreal present or future,

so the truth is I don't speak Spanish now and I do need to

rely on a translator as a result,

that entire sentence is focused on an unreal present. Now,

in this second example sentence, I want to do a mix.

I want to focus on something that didn't happen in the past and its

impact on the present. If I had learned Spanish in the past,

I wouldn't need to rely on a translator.

Now here the first part of that sentence is focused on the unreal past

and its influence on the present,

so now I want to pause here for a moment and ask you to reflect on

past decisions,

past outcomes that perhaps were missed opportunities or regrets

that still have an impact on your life today or potentially

on your future. Is there a sentence you might use to express that?

I have three sentence starters to help you think this through.

Take a moment to review them and if you want to,

you can share an example with me in the comments below.

If I had studied or learned, I would or wouldn't.

If I had pursued when I was younger,

I would or wouldn't if I had become a I would or

wouldn't. And now let's talk about the second reason.

You'll want to use this mixed conditional form.

You can use it to share an assumption about what you think might be

different about the present or future. Imagine for example,

you're attending a lecture with a friend and at the end of the presentation an

audience member asks the presenter a question and it's a question that seems

like it should be easy to answer. However,

you notice that the presenter is obviously struggling with how to

answer this question. While this is happening,

you might whisper to a friend if she had done her research,

she wouldn't be struggling with this question or she wouldn't hesitate

to answer this question. In this case,

you are acting on the assumption or the belief that she didn't do

her research.

The truth is you don't really know and you don't really know why she's

struggling in the present moment, perhaps something simply distracted her.

This statement allows us to express that assumption that if something else had

happened in the past, something else would be true about the present moment.

Here's another example of how we might assume the way a person

would respond if they were present in that moment.

Let's say you and your coworkers had a surprising meeting with your manager that

day, however,

one of your coworkers wasn't there in talking about what happened.

You might say Melissa would be furious if she had heard the

manager speak that way. Of course,

you can't know for certain how someone else might feel or respond in a

particular situation,

but we can make an assumption about it and this mixed conditional form helps us

express that assumption. And finally,

the third reason you'll want to use this mixed conditional form is you can use

it to express advice or feedback.

Imagine for example,

you manage a team and just before a major deadline,

one of your team members requests help or says that she's unable

to complete the project. As a result,

the entire team is in chaos and maybe has to work extra

to make up for this situation,

and it could have been addressed earlier,

but it wasn't in giving feedback to that team member.

You might say,

if I had been informed earlier when this issue initially began,

our team would be better prepared to handle this request.

How can we improve communication going forward to avoid putting extra stress on

the team?

Here's one more example of how we might use this to give advice or feedback.

In this case,

I want you to imagine that you work at a doctor's office and you're training a

new team member.

A woman has just arrived for her doctor's appointment and she's a little

frustrated that she can't see the doctor right away. Instead,

she has to spend 10 or 15 minutes completing a series of forms.

Now,

while the patient is doing that and in the process of training your new team

member, you might say if she had completed the forms online beforehand,

she would be with the doctor right now and we would avoid these uncomfortable

situations.

We always encourage our clients to complete the forms online to save time

when they arrive for their doctor's appointment.

You now have a complete overview of how and

why to use this mixed conditional form focused on the unreal past

with the unreal present and future.

I know that practice is a hundred percent necessary to gain that

automatic ability to be accurate when using these forms,

and that's why I have an extra bonus for you,

a downloadable PDF worksheet that gives you ample opportunity

to use the correct structures and I give you examples to check your

answers. On the worksheet,

you'll find 12 sentence prompts with the key words you should use for

your example sentence, and as always,

if you want to share any of your examples with me, you can do that.

The best place is in the comments below.

If you'd like to get that PDF worksheet,

I want you to visit this lesson at my Speak Confident English website.

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