First or Second Conditional? English Grammar Practice

Hey there I'm Emma from mmmEnglish!

Welcome to another English grammar lesson

here at mmmEnglish.

We're going to continue exploring conditionals

which are one of the most interesting

and exciting grammar structures in English, I think so.

This video today is going to help you to expand

your understanding of the first and the second

conditionals in English.

I think you already know the basics, especially if you're

a subscriber because you would have seen

all of my lessons about conditionals,

all of the links are in the description below

but today we're going to go a little deeper on

the first and the second conditional.

I'm going to give you lots of examples to help you

understand when to use the first and when to use

the second. Plus I'll also be talking about

how to use conditionals without 'if'

which is pretty shocking, I know because

'if' is the star of conditional sentences, you know.

But actually, you can use other words in place of 'if'

as well so I'm going to go through all of that

right here during this lesson.

Okay let's do a quick check together

before we get started.

You know there are five different types of conditional

sentences,

you know that the basic form of all of these sentences

is the same, right? We have an 'if' clause

and a main clause.

And the things that are different about these five types

of conditional sentences relate to time

and also to verb tense.

Now if you don't know any of these things

don't worry about it but

I do recommend that you check out this lesson up here.

It's an overview of conditional sentences,

it might help to jog your memory and get you thinking

correctly about conditional sentences

before we get started here.

So I want you to tell me. What's the difference

between the first conditional and the second conditional

So the best way to think about it

is the first conditional is real.

We use it to talk about things that are possible

in the future and there's a likely chance

of it happening.

So to make the first conditional, it's simple.

We use the present simple verb in our 'if' clause

and we use the future tense 'will'

in our main clause

so we use 'will' along with a bare infinitive verb.

If I miss the bus, I will take a taxi.

If they lose the game, they won't go to the finals.

If you get too close to the flames

you'll get burned.

So notice that with all of these examples,

these are real. They are possible

and they're likely to happen in the future.

Now when we move to the second conditional,

we actually have to leave the real world, the actual world

behind us.

Because although there is a possibility

of the result happening,

when we use the second conditional, it tells us that the

action is quite unlikely

so it's often called the unreal tense.

So we use the second conditional to talk about

imaginary situations in the present so these are

unreal situations. We also use it to talk about

unlikely future outcomes as well.

So it looks like 'if' and the past simple in our 'if' clause

and then 'would' with the bare infinitive verb following

in our main clause.

If I missed the bus, I would take a taxi.

If they lost the game, they wouldn't go to the finals.

If you got too close to the flames,

you'd get burned.

Wait a second.

These examples look

pretty similar to the first conditional examples right?

So with just a couple of little edits,

we have subtly changed these results

to seem less likely.

Suddenly we've got a set of hypothetical or

imaginary situations and their results but those results

are unlikely to actually happen right?

Such is the second conditional.

Many ideas can be correctly expressed in English using

both the first

and the second conditional sentence structure

but each type of sentence changes the meaning

noticeably so you really need to be careful

about which type of sentence structure you're using.

You've got to carefully choose.

So let's look at a couple of examples to help you out.

So we've got

If I miss the bus, I will take a taxi.

If I missed the bus, I would take a taxi.

Now in the first example, this is real and possible.

It's based on an actual situation.

Just imagine that you are walking down the street

quite quickly towards the bus stop

because it's actually the exact time that the bus

is supposed to arrive and there is a chance

it's pulling up at the bus stop right now.

You're hoping that it's not because

you're going to be late otherwise right?

You still want to make it to work on time.

But in your head, as you're walking

you're coming up with a backup plan, right, a plan B.

Here's what you're going to do.

If I miss the bus, I will take a taxi.

So this situation is based on a real-life scenario right.

Something that is likely to happen.

There's a good chance that that bus

has already come to the bus stop and you're not there.

But the second example in the second conditional,

totally imaginary. Maybe I've got no plans at all

to take the bus,

maybe I don't even take the bus to work.

Or perhaps I'm extremely punctual.

I'm almost never late to the bus.

But for whatever reason, this thing, the outcome, is very

unlikely to happen and we know that

because we're using the second conditional.

So you can see how powerful this decision is right?

The grammar structure that you choose influences

the meaning of your sentence.

Let's do a few more examples together

just to make sure you've got it.

If I run out of butter, I'll just use oil.

So again imagine, imagine that you're baking

and there isn't much butter left.

You can't be bothered going to the shops so

I've got a plan. If I run out of butter,

I know what I'm going to do and this is a likely event

right. If I ran out of butter, I'd just use oil.

Now this is a hypothetical situation.

I'm not talking about a specific baking event

that's happening now.

I'm just talking about what I would hypothetically do

if this ever happened to me while I was baking.

I could be giving advice to someone who's asking.

If I ran out of butter, I'd just use oil.

You won't notice the difference.

If she finds a dog on the street, she'll adopt it.

She loves dogs, right? She has plans to adopt a dog.

In fact, she's looking for a dog and there are lots

of street dogs in her area.

So it's quite likely that if she finds a dog on the street

that doesn't have a home,

it's quite likely that she'll adopt it.

If she found a dog on the street, she'd adopt it.

So again, she loves dogs. Perhaps there's actually

not many street dogs in her area

which makes the outcome quite unlikely right?

If she were taller, she would play basketball.

Okay so this is the second conditional right

and she's imagining what she would do

if she had been born taller

but she wasn't right? She can't change her height.

So this situation has to be unreal.

So for that reason, be careful because we can't

write a version of this in the first conditional.

There isn't a likely chance or a likely outcome

where this would happen right?

She can't change the way that she is

however

we can make a couple of changes to make it possible.

We can say

you know if we're talking about a child

who is still growing then it's possible right

but we might have to change the verb and say

If she grows taller, she will play basketball.

It's really important to keep in mind that many ideas

can be expressed in the first or the second conditional

depending on whether they're real or imaginary.

But not all ideas can be expressed

in both tenses right so be careful about that.

Real versus imaginary.

Hopefully, you're starting to feel pretty good

about the difference between

the first and the second conditional right?

But I've got one extra

thing that I want you to keep in mind.

So take a look at this sentence here.

Is it a conditional sentence?

It has two clauses.

It has a present tense verb in the first clause.

It has 'will' and the base verb in the main clause

but it doesn't have the word 'if'.

It actually doesn't matter. This sentence is still

a conditional sentence. A first conditional sentence

and there are a couple of very specific words

that you can use to replace 'if'

in the first

and also the second conditional sentence structure.

It's still a conditional sentence

but the word that you choose, of course, has

the ability to change the meaning

of your sentence slightly.

Unless it rains soon, the lake will dry up.

Or

if it rains soon, the lake won't dry up.

Both of these sentences are okay. They're great

but of course, the change affects the meaning

of our sentence slightly.

So we need to be aware of that.

So you can definitely replace 'if' with the word 'unless'

but the meaning is slightly different. It means if not

or except if.

And you can use 'unless' in the first

and the second conditional sentence structure

but it can't be used to talk about past situations

that can't be changed right

so you can't use 'unless' in the third

conditional sentence structure for example.

Check out some examples.

Unless she apologises, I will not forgive her.

Unless it gets below zero degrees the water won't freeze

Unless they fired me, I wouldn't leave the company.

Besides 'unless' and 'if' we can also use 'as long as'

which is really, really useful if you want to set a limit

or a condition on the expression.

So this is like saying if and only if the condition happens

so if the condition doesn't happen

then the result is not possible or it's not allowed.

'As long as' is usually used with the first conditional

because it's used when the result is expected.

As long as I get time off work, I'll come for a visit.

As long as it's not too crowded, we'll stay for dinner.

As long as he finishes his homework,

he'll join you at the skate park.

Great work! We're almost done,

we've got one more option to replace 'if' with

and that is using 'supposing' or 'supposing that'.

So using 'supposing that' helps the listener to

imagine a situation so it's really similar to using 'if'

but just with a bit of extra command to really tell

the listener that you want them to

imagine, turn on their imagination.

Now it can be used in either the first or the second

conditional but it's much more comfortable

in the second conditional for sure because you're

imagining right.

Supposing I can change my flight,

I'll come a few days earlier.

Supposing you got a huge Christmas bonus,

would you go on a holiday?

So conditionals can be quite cool really, you can

tweak and you can change them

to help add extra layers of meaning in your sentence

and the best way to become familiar

with conditional sentences is to start writing them

and to start experimenting with them

and right now we're going to jump into a really

quick quiz to help you put what you learned here today

into action.

So I'm going to give you a few different situations

and you're going to decide which conditional sentence

is the best one for you to use.

So I want you to write your answers down

in the comments below so that I can come down

and I can check them for you

and if you're feeling up to it,

try and experiment a little with 'if'.

Perhaps you can use one of the other words

or expressions that we practised.

As long as, unless.

Right so here's a situation.

It's my friend's birthday next week

I want to get her a present and

I always forget things like birthdays

and she always gets quite upset when I forget things.

So

in the quiz, I'd ask you to pause the video

just for a second to think about the situation

but let's just do this one together.

So this situation is pretty real, right?

There's a birthday plan next week. It's coming up soon.

I also know that there's a pretty high chance

I'll forget to buy a present because it's a really

bad habit of mine.

You can't really say that this situation is hypothetical

can you? There's a high probability that it will happen.

So I think we need to use the first conditional

so a good sentence would be

If I forget to buy my friend a birthday present,

she will be upset.

See that wasn't so hard was it?

Now it's your turn. Situation one.

You're dreaming about buying a new car.

The car you want is expensive.

A promotion at work would help you

to be able to afford it.

Nobody at work has talked about

the possibility of a promotion.

You're just dreaming it.

So pause the video and write your sentence.

Situation two.

You're deciding what to cook for dinner.

Someone suggests making a spicy dish.

You know that your child hates spicy food,

there's no possibility that your child

is gonna eat something spicy.

Again, pause the video, write your sentence.

Situation three.

A friend asked you to take care of their dog

while they're on holidays.

You would feel horrible if the dog ran away.

You know that it probably won't happen

but you ask your friend to imagine

that possibility anyway.

Situation four.

You love coffee so much.

You imagine what would happen if you ran out of coffee

Luckily you know that would never actually happen.

Awesome work gang!

I'm so proud of you for sticking with me all the way

through to the end and for putting everything

that you learned into practice right.

It's the best way to make it stick

and if this lesson was really useful for you, then

share it with one of your friends who also needs

to improve their English grammar.

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