ENGLISH PODCAST: MASTER ENGLISH CONDITIONALS IN UNDER 23 MINUTES

- [Jack] Today, you're gonna learn all

about the various conditionals in English,

and I like teaching this lesson because the examples

that you give can be quite inventive, quite fun,

and a great idea with this,

just like any of the lesson that I give,

is for you to practice some sentences

and use the app that I recommend.

I'll leave a link in the description for that,

so then they can correct sentences for you

but yeah, we're gonna talk about conditionals in English,

and I'm gonna start with one right now by just saying,

I, personally, do not like wearing suits.

So a suit is that formal attire with the pants

and the jacket, a shirt, and, normally, a tie as well,

and I don't like wearing suits

because they're uncomfortable.

I don't know about you, if you are male,

if you like wearing suits, but I don't like wearing them,

but I wear a suit when I go to a wedding.

I wear a suit when I go to a wedding.

Now, this is called the zero conditional,

and I'll explain it in a minute, but before I do.

Hello, my name is Jack from tofluency.com.

Welcome to you.

If you are new here, or if you haven't done so already,

subscribe to this channel.

Right now, we release a lesson every Thursday.

I'm thinking about changing this to Tuesdays,

but, you know, that might come in the future.

It might not.

And also, share this lesson

with a friend if you find it useful.

So that's another conditional,

share this lesson with a friend if you find it useful.

So when we're using conditionals, we have two clauses,

two parts to the conditional.

The if clause, If something happens,

and then we have the result clause

or the consequence of that.

So what I'm saying is, "if you find this useful,

then share it with a friend,"

and I'm using the imperative here, "share it with a friend."

I'm not saying, "will you share it?"

Using the will.

So a lot of people always think about will,

with conditionals, but you're gonna see

so many examples today where we don't use will,

just like the example I gave before.

"When I go to weddings, I wear a suit."

Now, this is a zero conditional,

and this is used to talk about things you normally do,

things that you normally do, in general habits.

It's quite simple.

It's just saying, if I do this, then I do that.

When I do this, then I do that.

For example, I can say, "when my wife

and I have a babysitter, we normally go to a restaurant."

"When my wife and I have a babysitter for our children,

we normally go to a restaurant."

So it's talking about what we generally do,

our general habits.

So we can think about this in terms

of our daily routine as well.

For example, "when I have a late night,

I always feel tired in the morning."

"When I have a late night, I feel tired in the morning,"

or "when my kids aren't in school,

I spend time with them during the day."

"When my kids aren't in school,

I spend time with them during the day."

Now, we also use the zero conditional for facts as well.

A simple one is, "if you heat water, it boils,"

or "if you heat water to a hundred degrees, it boils,"

or "ice cream melts when you puts it in the sun."

"Ice cream melts when you puts it in the sun."

So the zero conditional isn't one

that people, generally, think about that much,

but I'm sure you've used this all the time,

and your task right now is to think

of a conditional in the zero conditional.

So think about your daily routine

and how when one thing happens, another thing happens.

When you stay up late, what happens in the morning?

You might say, "when I stay up late,

I drink more coffee the next day."

"When I stay up late, I drink more coffee the next day."

So you're talking about general habits,

what you normally do.

Now, the next one, the first conditional,

is when we're using the if clause

to talk about a real situation or a realistic situation,

usually, in the future, in the future,

and instead of giving you a will example,

I'm gonna give you an imperative example.

Okay, so imagine that I have

this really important letter for Matthew.

Matthew needs to read this letter.

You can imagine a movie scene here,

where I need this letter to be read by Matthew. (chuckles)

I don't know why I put it in the passive,

but you are our only hope

because I'm not gonna see Matthew,

but you might see Matthew,

and I'll say to you, "if you see Matthew,

give him this letter."

"If you see Matthew, give him this letter."

This is using the imperative form here.

"If you see Matthew, give him this letter."

Another example is, imagine you have

a friend who you quite like.

You want to be more than friends.

You might say something like, "you know,

we can do something if you're free later."

"We can do something if you're free later."

So again, we're use the word come here, not the word will.

I'll give you a will example soon,

but if you free later, we can do something,

if you want to do something.

Now, another example is imagine that your parents are coming

to visit and your house is a disaster.

You have just left things everywhere, is dirty.

The windows are dirty, everything is so dirty.

You can say to your husband or wife,

"okay, If my parents come, we have to clean the house."

"If my parents come, we have to clean the house."

Again, I've not given you example with will yet,

but if my parents come, we have to clean the house.

All right, I think you're ready for a will example,

and it's this.

If don't clean the house, my parents will go crazy.

If we don't clean the house, my parents will go crazy.

Again, it's a realistic situation in the future.

There's an if clause and then a consequence.

If we don't clean the house, my parents will go crazy,

and I wanna give one more example,

like a movie example again.

You can imagine this, where in the movie you might say,

"if you ever see her again, tell her that I love her."

"If you ever see her again, tell her that I love her."

That is my American accent.

If anyone is a movie agent in Hollywood,

send me an email, [email protected],

and then I wanna give you one last example

but using a question.

So imagine that you have arranged a wedding,

and the wedding is outside, and you've paid a lot of money.

You have all the things you need.

You have all the food, the photographer,

and then you start thinking, and you ask the question,

"but what will we do if it rains?"

"What will we do if it rains?"

So you're asking the question. If it rains, what will we do?

And as you can notice with these conditionals,

you can switch them around.

You can have the if or when close at the start,

or you can have it at the end.

Well, "what will we do if it rains"

and your partner says, "oh, haven't thought about that."

Okay, the second conditional, the fun one.

This is the one where we talk

about impossible or improbable situations,

and the number one example.

Actually, I think there were two.

There were two big examples.

One is "if I won the lottery, I would buy."

And I'm sure you've seen this in every textbook,

English textbook or English course.

"If I won the lottery, I would buy a new house,"

which, you know, is true, probably, in a lot of cases,

but we can do better.

We can think about different things as well

and actually, I do wanna give that lottery example

as a good of when it's impossible versus a real situation,

even if it's improbable,

because let's say that you have

a lottery ticket for tonight.

Your friend might ask you, "what will you buy if you win?"

"What will you buy if you win?"

Whereas, you might just say, if I might ask you, randomly,

"what would you buy if you won the lottery?"

Now, the reason we can use the first conditional here is

because you have a ticket.

You actually have a lottery ticket.

The word realistic doesn't always make sense,

but it's something that is a real situation in the future.

You have a lottery ticket.

Oh, well, if I win this tonight,

I'll buy a new house tomorrow, most likely.

Whereas the, "if you won the lottery, what would you buy?"

Is more of a hypothetical.

Let's fantasize about this.

Let's have fun with this situation.

The question I like to ask is if you could live

in any country in the world, which country would you choose?

So if you had the ability, if you could.

If you could live in any country in the world,

which country would you choose?

Leave your answers below

if there is a comment section below.

Now, going back to our letter to Matthew,

imagine if our friend reads this, and they say to you,

"oh my goodness, I wouldn't give

that letter to Matthew if I were you."

"I wouldn't give that letter to Matthew if I were you."

So this is like giving advice to somebody.

If I were you, I wouldn't take that job.

If I were you. I wouldn't date him.

If I were you, I would not.

I would never date him if I were you.

I would never date him.

Now, the second conditional reminds me a little bit of the,

"would you rather" questions,

where you give two options, or maybe more options,

and somebody has to choose one of the options.

Now, sometimes these are strange or rude or something else,

but I'm just gonna give you a couple of fun ones,

and I'll send you to a website

where you can read more about it.

Would you rather have the ability

to see 10 minutes into the future

or 150 years into the future?

I mean, that's easy, isn't it?

It's definitely 150 years into the future,

unless you're.

I don't know, unless wow.

Hmm. That no.

Definitely 150 years into the future.

So you can see what the world is gonna be like then.

Whereas, 10 minutes, I suppose you

could do something like put a bet on,

if there's a soccer game that ends,

but it's kind of boring, that one.

All right, here's another one.

Would you rather labor under a hot sun or extreme cold?

Probably extreme cold, but with really good clothes on.

Would you rather wear the same socks for a month

or the same underwear for a week?

Hm. Ah.

I'd say the same socks from month.

No, the same underway for a week.

Would you rather have a sing-off

with Ariana Grande or a dance-off with Rihanna.

Now, a sing-off is where you have like a competition

of singing and a dance-off is where you have a competition

of dancing, and this one is easy for me,

a dance-off with Rihanna because I would win.

Anyway, let's just go back to the second conditional.

People use this a lot in terms of if I had more time.

I think time and money. People talk about these two.

If I have more time, I would do this.

If I had more money, I would do that.

If I had more money, I would have more time.

Hmm, and if I have more time, I think,

I would spend more time just in nature, outside,

just doing, not doing nothing,

but just not feeling like I have to do something,

but that's the second conditional.

The third conditional is used to talk

about impossible things or, like, hypothetical things,

similar to the second conditional but in the past.

So we can change the past to then change the past,

or we can change one part of the past

or another part of the past,

and we often use it to describe things that we regret

or just about how things would be different.

Now, the example I like to give is

that I met my wife in a language school,

and I came out of my hostel and actually asked for.

I didn't ask for directions,

but this guy just approached me because I had a map,

and I was, obviously, not from Ecuador,

and he said, "oh, wait, where are you going?"

So I told him, "the language school, my first choice,"

and he said, "oh, go right, just go right.

It's down that road,"

and I thought, "no, it's not.

I know. I've looking at my map.

It's the other way."

So when someone gives you directions,

you have to follow what they say

because it's strange, isn't it?

Going off in the other direction.

So, anyway, I followed his directions

and yeah, looked to my map a few minutes later,

and I said, "look, I'm at option number two.

I'm closer to that option. So I might as well."

Great phrase, great phrase. I might as well.

"Might as well just go to that language school now."

So I did. That's where I met my wife.

So I often say, "if that guy hadn't approached me."

So if that guy hadn't approached me,

"I wouldn't have met my wife."

So I don't know who he is.

If you're listening to this in Ecuador,

and you remember this situation, let me know.

But if that guy hadn't approached me,

I wouldn't have met my wife.

So we're talking about how you change one situation

in the past and what that consequence is in the past as well

and now, I'm gonna give you the typical example

that you see in textbooks.

Are you ready? Are you ready for this?

"If I had brought my umbrella, I wouldn't have got wet."

"If I had brought my umbrella, I wouldn't have got wet."

Now, the only way I see people use this is

in a very sarcastic way, like where a parent says

to the kid, "okay, it might rain, take your umbrella,"

or "it's gonna rain, take an umbrella,"

and the child says, "no, no, I don't need an umbrella,"

then the mum or the dad says, "come on,

just take an umbrella with you, just in case.

If it doesn't rain, don't use it.

If it rains, you have your umbrella."

"No, I'm not taking my umbrella.

I don't need my umbrella,"

and then the child comes back 10 minutes later,

soaked, soaked, and you say,

"well, if you'd taken an umbrella,

you wouldn't have got wet."

I think the second most typical example here is,

"if I had studied harder, I would have passed the exam."

"If I had studied harder, I would have passed the exam."

So those are two examples I'm sure you've heard before.

They're quite good examples in the sense

that they really focus in on specific things

that make sense for using the third conditional,

but I'm gonna give you another movie experience one now

because imagine your friend gives that letter to Matthew,

and then you never hear from Matthew again

because that letter was just terrible.

It didn't make any sense.

So you can say, "ugh, if I hadn't given that let to Matthew,

maybe he would have forgiven me."

"If I hadn't given that letter to Matthew,

maybe he would have forgiven me."

Now, sometimes we are not completely certain

that changing the past would change the past.

So you might say something like, "well, if I studied harder,

I might have passed the exam."

"If I had studied harder, I might have passed the exam"

or with more intonation.

I'll give it to you with more intonation.

"If I studied harder, I might have passed the exam."

I might, I might have passed the exam.

Not quite sure.

I might have done it but maybe not,

or, "oh, I could have come to the party if you had told me"

So this person didn't tell me about this party

and I'm. (grunts)

I don't like to miss parties, but maybe I was unavailable.

So, "I could have come to the party. If you had told me,"

or, "I would have come to the party, if you would tell me,"

which is a lot stronger,

and then I wanna give you a question example.

You might say, "so would you have passing exam

If you had studied harder?"

"Would you have passed the exam if you had studied harder?"

Maybe.

Okay, so those are the various conditionals

in English but wait, there's more.

There are more conditionals.

There are these conditionals called mixed conditionals,

and I'm not gonna go into too much depth here.

I'll leave a link to a video I made on this,

but I'm just gonna give you a couple of examples,

and a great example is, "if I'd bought Bitcoin in 2011,

I would be rich now."

So this is how the past affects the present.

"If I had bought Bitcoin in 2011," the past,

"I would be rich now," the present,

or, "if that guy hadn't have given me

the wrong directions", in Ecuador.

"If he hadn't have given me the wrong directions,

then I wouldn't be in America now."

So this is a fun one where you can think

about how the past affects the present,

and you can also have ones where the past affects the future

or your current situation affects the future.

Those types of things,

or your current situation affects the past.

Again, I'll leave a link to the lesson I made on that.

So then you can go through that quite slowly

and have a good look at the examples.

So the zero, first, second, and third conditionals.

We use these a lot in English, and they're fun to use.

Like I said before, the zero conditional focuses

on the habits and facts in general, what you normally do.

The first one talks about a future situation,

a realistic future situation.

The second one is more

about hypothetical situations or improbable ones,

and then the third is about things in the past,

which is, again, a fun one to use.

So again, if you found this useful, here's a conditional,

then please share it with a friend.

So just click that share button, send it by Messenger,

send it by iPhone message or post it to a Facebook group.

Share the love, share this with more people.

If you're listening on Spotify, hello.

If you're listening on Apple iTunes, hello to you,

and if you're listening on YouTube, hello, YouTubers,

good to have you here.

So again, I hope you found it useful,

and it's great having you here with me.

Like I said, we release a lesson about once a week.

I'd say about once a week, every week.

We might start doing it on Tuesday soon.

Let me know what you think about that

and yeah, if you're new here, subscribe to these lessons.

Thanks again for being here and I'll speak to you soon.

Bye, bye.