Conditional sentences can be real and unreal. Real conditional describes real-life situations while unreal conditional describes unreal, imaginary situations. Although the various conditional forms might seem quite abstract at first, they are actually some of the most useful structures in English and are commonly used in everyday conversations.
1. Paco's camera battery ran out (conditional type III)
Actividad de lectura
When Paco arrived in Washington D.C., he was really tired after his days in New York. But he didn't want to relax and miss the chance to get to know the capital of the States in depth. So he took his camera and the guide book about Washington he had bought at the airport and started to walk around the city.
Paco would have bought a 16 GB memory card for his camera if he had known that he was going to take so many pictures. And he would have charged the battery if he had realized that his camera had run out of energy.
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Imagen de Henry Camacho en Wikipedia. Licencia CC. |
Imagen de Henry Camacho. en Wikipedia. Licencia CC. |
Imagen de Henry Camacho en Wikipedia. Licencia CC. |
Washington was so different from New York! There were so many places to visit that it was a pity that Paco couldn't have taken as many pictures as he had liked, above all in the National Mall, which is an open-area national park in downtown Washington, D.C.
The National Mall is a unit of the National Park Service. The term National Mall commonly includes areas that are officially part of West Potomac Park and Constitution Gardens to the west, and it is often taken to refer to the whole area between the Lincoln Memorial and the Capitol, with the Washington Monument providing a division slightly west of the centre.
Do you think we can change the position of the if-clause and the main clause without a change in the meaning of the third type of conditional sentences?
Comprueba lo aprendido
Solución
Solución
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Reflexiona
The Past Unreal Conditional is used to talk about imaginary situations in the past. You can describe what you would have done differently or how something could have happened differently if circumstances had been different
Conditional type III: no possibility
The first conditional and second conditionals talk about the future. With the third conditional we talk about the past, about a condition in the past that did not happen. That is why there is no possibility for this condition:
| CONDITION | RESULT | |
| Past Perfect | WOULD HAVE + Past Participle | |
| If | I had played tennis better | I wouldn't have lost the game. |
Notice that we use the past perfect tense to talk about the impossible past condition. We use WOULD HAVE + past participle to talk about the impossible past result. The important thing about third conditional sentences is that condition and result are impossible.
Ejercicio Resuelto
1) I _____(go) on foot if it __________ so much. ( not rain)
2) If I ______ (win) the lottery, I __________ around the world. ( travel)
3) The students __________(pass) the test if they___________ harder. (study)
4) If my father ___________(not be) so busy he __________ me a hand. (give)
5) If you __________ (come)to New York city with me, you _____________ it. (enjoy)
Complete these conditional sentences type III with the verbs given in brackets.
Curiosidad
THE WHITE HOUSE
The White House is the official residence and principal workplace of the President of the United States. Located at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW in Washington, D.C., it was built between 1792 and 1800 of white-painted Aquia sandstone in the late Georgian style and has been the residence of every U.S. President since John Adams. It was designed by Irish-born James Hoban. When Thomas Jefferson moved into the home in 1801, he (with architect Benjamin Henry Latrobe) expanded the building outward, creating two colonnades which were meant to conceal stables and storage.
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| Imagen de upstateNyer. Licencia CC. | Imagen de GearedBull. Licencia CC. |
Today, the White House Complex includes the Executive Residence (in which the First Family resides), the West Wing (the location of the Oval Office, Cabinet Room, and Roosevelt Room), and the East Wing (the location of the office of the First Lady and White House Social Secretary), as well as the Old Executive Office Building, which houses the executive offices of the President and Vice President.
The White House is made up of six stories—the Ground Floor, State Floor, Second Floor, and Third Floor, as well as a two-story basement. The term White House is regularly used as a metonym for the Executive Office of the President of the United States and for the president's administration and advisors in general. The property is owned by the National Park Service and is part of the President's Park. In 2007, it was ranked second on the American Institute of Architects's list of "America's Favorite Architecture."
Taken from Wikipedia.
Importante
Conditionals with modal verbs
There are some special conditional forms for modal verbs in English:
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| Imagen de A.M.Al Mutawee. Licencia CC . |
could have + past participle:
John could have passed the exam if he had studied harder.= It was possible for him to pass if he studied
should have + past participle:
You should have passed the exam if you had studied harder.= That's what we expected
might/may have:
You might have passed the exam if you hadn't made so many mistakes.= It's not sure, less certain than would have
Para saber más
If you need to remember the first and second conditionals, then have a look here.
English conditionals: type III.
A lot of information about the conditionals (in Spanish).
Here you have some exercises to practice the third conditional:
| Exercise 1 | Exercise 2 | Exercise 3 |
| Exercise 4 | Exercise 5 | Exercise 6 |
Would you like to see inside the White House? Watch the video. You'll be surprised.
| Video de The Obama White House en Youtube |
We hope you don't have any questions about the uses and form of the type 3 conditional sentences. Now let's have a look at the special linguistic features of American pronunciation.