The English Conditional Tense Made Simple

Do you find yourself scratching your head when learning the English conditional tense?

There are different types of English conditional tense sentences and they express different meanings according to how they’re formed. So no wonder you might feel confused!

But don’t worry.  In this post you’ll get all the answers to your questions about conditionals. You’ll learn what they are, when we use them and how. And you’ll see lots of examples of conditional sentences too.

Ready?

Let’s start.

What Is The English Conditional Tense?

A conditional is a sentence that describes a situation and the result of this situation. That’s it. That’s all a conditional is. 

So why are there different types of conditionals?

Good question. In English there are 5 types of conditional sentences because we can describe different types of situations.

Think about it. Situations can be real, certain, uncertain or imaginary, and they can exist in the past, present, or future, or they can be true at all times.

So let’s put conditionals in order. Here’s a table that summarises all types of conditionals according to the time and the type of situation they describe.

As you can see, all conditional sentences are composed of 2 parts. The “if-part”, called if clause, and the “conditional part”, called conditional clause or main clause. 

What we express in the main clause depends – or is conditional – on what we express in the if clause. 

Let’s now have a closer look at each type of English conditional tense in more detail.

Zero Conditional

You use the zero conditional to express general truth or facts that are always true. For example, what happens if you heat ice? It melts, right? This is always true.

The result of what we express in the if clause is always what we say in the main clause.

So here is our conditional sentence:

• If you heat ice, it melts.

Here are some other examples:

• If you drop an object, it falls toward the ground.
• I feel tired when I don’t sleep enough.
• If you want to lose weight, you need to do exercise.
• People die if they don't drink water for many days.
• Most cats purr if you stroke them under the chin.

The form of the zero conditional is:

if/when + present simple, + …. present tense

That's not so complicated is it? Perhaps the English conditional tense isn't so bad after all! Let’s now move on to the first conditional.

First Conditional

The first conditional tells you the results that a particular situation might have in the future.

For example:

• If the weather is nice, we’re going to spend some time at the beach tomorrow.
• If you don’t study today, you'll not pass the exam next week. 
• I might buy a new laptop if I have enough money at the end of the month.
• If I decide to read the book, I might email you a review.
• I’m going to ask my boss for a pay rise if I see her tomorrow. 

Have you already noticed the difference between the zero conditional and the first conditional?

The zero conditional tells about factual results of a situation that are always true. The first conditional describes the possible results of a particular future situation.

This is why the first conditional is also called the “future conditional”. 

Here is how to form it:

So, the first conditional is all about future possible, real situations and results. But situations can also be impossible or imaginary, right? That’s why we have the second conditional. Time for the next part of this English conditional tense guide.

Second Conditional

Imagine winning the lottery, being an animal or having a superpower. How cool would that be? This is what we use the second conditional for – to talk about something we see as unreal, unlikely or even impossible. 

Here are some examples:

• If I had more time, I would travel more (but I don’t have more time so I can’t travel more).
• If it were warmer today, we could go to the beach (but it’s a cold day so we can’t go to the beach).
• I would quit my job if I won the lottery tomorrow (but winning the lottery is very unlikely so I need to keep my job) 
• If I could be an animal, I would be a wolf (but I’m not an animal)
• If she could choose to have a superpower, she would choose night vision (but she doesn’t have a superpower).

Here’s how to form the second conditional:

You may have noticed that we use the past in the if clause. Does this mean that you’re talking about the past?

The answer is no, you’re not. You’re talking about the present (if it were warmer today, we could go to the beach) or the future (If I won the lottery tomorrow, I would quit my job).

So what if we want to talk about past imaginary situations? Well, we have the third conditional for that. Let’s have a look at this next aspect of the English conditional tense now.

Third Conditional

Can you change the past? Of course not. But you can imagine the past being different. You could, for example, imagine that the ancient Egyptians never existed in the past. Of course this is not true, you're just imagining a different past situation. 

Let’s also think of the imaginary past results of this. What could these be? Well, if this population didn’t exist, they couldn’t build their amazing monuments, right?

So here is our third conditional sentence:

• If the ancient Egyptians had never existed, they couldn’t have built their amazing monuments.

Here are some other examples of this conditional:

• If she had studied harder, she would have passed the exam (but she didn’t, so she failed).
• If he had not missed the flight, he would have arrived on time (but he missed it so he arrived late).
• If I had listened to my parents, I wouldn't have made that mistake (but I didn’t listen to them, so I made the mistake).
• We would have canceled the event if it had rained (but it was sunny, the event took place).
• He would have understood the lesson if he had paid attention in class (but he was distracted so he didn’t understand the lesson).

Here's how to form the English third conditional in this way:

As you can see, the third conditional describes past imaginary results of a past situation. You can, however, think of the results the same imaginary past situation could have in the present. This is why we have the so-called mixed conditionals.

Let’s examine these now, shall we?

Mixed Conditionals

Let’s talk about the ancient Egyptians again and imagine they didn’t exist in the past. How would the present be different? Maybe there wouldn’t be any pyramids in Egypt today, right?

So this is our sentence:

• If the ancient Egyptians had never existed, maybe there wouldn’t be any pyramids in modern Egypt.

Let’s see more example sentences: 

• If he had not missed the flight, he would be on time for the meeting (but he missed it and now he’s late)
• If she had invested her money, she would be rich by now (but she spent it all and now she’s not rich).
• They would not be lost now if they had taken the alternative route (but they didn’t take it so now they’re lost)
• If she had learned to drive when she was younger, now she wouldn’t need to take the bus to go to work (but she didn’t learn, so she needs to take the bus every day)
• I would be healthy now if I had stopped smoking years ago (but I continued smoking, so now I’m not very healthy now)

Did you see why we call them mixed conditionals? Mixed conditional sentences are sentences where we find the third conditional in the if clause and the second conditional in the main clause.

English Conditional Tense Explained

So, the English conditional tense might be confusing because it's formed using different grammatical structures.

But as you’ve seen in this post, the grammatical structure you use depends on what type of situation you want to describe. 

When in doubt about which conditional sentence you should use, you can ask yourself these 2 questions: 

1. “Am I talking about a present, past or future situation or a general truth?” 
2. “Is this situation real / possible / likely or is it an imaginary / impossible / unlikely situation?”

Answering these questions will help you choose the conditional sentence you need. 

Otherwise, look out for the English conditional tense as you listen to or read English. You'll spot it as you apply the StoryLearning method and read short stories in English.

Olly Richards

Creator of the StoryLearning® Method

Olly Richards is a renowned polyglot and language learning expert with over 15 years of experience teaching millions through his innovative StoryLearning® method. He is the creator of StoryLearning, one of the world's largest language learning blogs with 500,000+ monthly readers.

Olly has authored 30+ language learning books and courses, including the bestselling "Short Stories" series published by Teach Yourself.

When not developing new teaching methods, Richards practices what he preaches—he speaks 8 languages fluently and continues learning new ones through his own methodology.