Conditional III

Today we continue our talk about conditionals, and the topic of our lesson is conditional sentences of the third type.

Look at the picture; here you can see an old man from a famous fairy tale. You have read it, haven’t you? So, he is thinking about something. What are his thoughts about? Let’s see.

If I were young, I would swim with you, dear Golden Fish!

Definitely, he is dreaming about the present or the near future. Moreover, he expresses his unreal wish or hope. In this sentence there is an unreal condition with an impossible or unreal result. Therefore, it is the second type of conditionals.

In the IF part of the sentence the predicate is the Past Simple of the verb to be. The main part is formed with the Future Simple in the Past of the verb to swim.

In the other dream bubble, the old man expresses his disappointment and regret. He is sad because he made mistakes in the past but now he cannot change anything. The man lost all his opportunities.

Can you guess this grammar structure?

Yes, you are right. It is the third conditional.

Let’s study some other examples,

If I had studied well at school, I would have become a successful business woman.

But I was not a good pupil then, that’s why now I am a cleaner.

If my granddad had listened to the weather forecast yesterday, he would not have got wet.

But yesterday he did not listen, and when he went to play golf, he got wet.

So, the third conditional is used in hypothetical past situations which are impossible to change now.

In the sentences with such grammar structure the speaker expresses regret or criticism about lost possibilities or opportunities of the past.

Now we are going to study the formation of the third type of conditional sentences.

We have two parts in the sentence – the “IF part” and the main part.

In the “if” part we have the subject and the predicate in the Past Perfect Tense. It is HAD plus verb with the ending -ed if the verb is regular, or the past participle if the verb is irregular.

In the main part after the subject we use the Future Perfect in the Past Tense (that is “would” plus have and the Past Participle of the main verb). If the verb is regular we add the ending –ed, if the verb is irregular we take the past participle. The abbreviation ’d can stand both for had and would and it is common in both speech and informal writing.

As an illustration,

If I’d known about your yesterday’s party, I’d have joined you.  But he forgot to invite me, that is why I did not go there.

Now we get down to the practical part of the lesson. Here are some exercises to check the rule.

In exercise 1 the task is to answer the questions about the following situations.

Look at the picture.

The girl says, “I would not have become a successful violinist if mother had not encouraged me in my childhood.”

Do you think it is about the past or the present? Of course, the past.

Question number 2: Did she become a successful violinist? Yes, you are right. She did.

Question number 3: Did her mother encourage her? Yes, she did.

In our next picture the situation is the following: FC Barcelona would have won the match, if their forward Lionel Messi had not injured his leg.

Your ideas, did FC Barcelona win? Definitely not.

And one more question: Was their forward injured? Yes, of course.

You are great.

The last situation in this exercise is like that. The boy thinks “I would not have passed my exams if Kate and Liz had not helped me.”

Answer, please, is it about the past or the present? Correct, the past.

Question 2: Did the girls help him? Yes, they did.

And the last one: Did he pass the exam? Naturally, he did.

That was really a perfect job!

In the following exercise the task is to analyze whether ‘d is short for would or had in the given examples.

Number 1: If I had seen her, I would have let you know.

Number 2: I would have written the test better, if I had known the rule.

Number 3: He would have gone to the cinema, if he had got enough money.

Number 4: If he had been attentive, he would have managed to escape the crash.

That is well done! And our final check up!

In exercise 3 you have to put in the correct verb forms and be sure to make each sentence refer to the past.

1. If my car had not broken down, I would have arrived to the department in time.

2. If my father had locked the doors, the burglar would not have entered our house.

3. You would not have got ill, if you had not eaten so much ice cream.

That is all for today! See you at our next lesson.