Conditionals

Zero: If I work + present simple 

1st: If I work + Will
2nd: If I worked + Would + inf 
3rd: If I had worked + Would’ve + participle 

Mixed: 

If + past perfect + past simple 

or 

If + past simple + past perfect

If + los tiempos verbales + los verbos modales
Vs. 
If I Will/Would + Will/Would = incorrect

If I do/eat/have this+ you will … that
If I did/ate/had this+ you would … that
If I had done/eaten/had this + you would’ve … that



Normal sentences

Conditional sentences

Present tenses = present 


Past simple = past 


Past perfect =
past of the past 



Present tenses = zero and 1st conditionals 


Present/Future 


Past



Connect the conditionals to the three columns of the verb chart. The first column represents the first conditional, the second column represents the second conditional and the third column represents the third conditional. 







1st conditional 

If clause



2nd conditional 





3rd conditional with HAD

do

eat 

drink 

take 

work 

did

ate 

drank

took

worked 

done

eaten 

drunk

taken 

worked 








will + inf 




Modal clause 


would + inf 








would’ve + participle 

Zero conditional 

What do you do if you get a headache? 

What do you do if you are bored? 

What happens to your clothes if you walk in the rain? 

What happens to water if you heat it to a hundred degrees? 

Are these situations facts which are always true? 

Does the structure have the present simple on both sides?

1st conditional 

What will you do if your computer stops working?

What will happen if we don’t stop polluting? 

What will we do if computers become much more intelligent than people? 

What will happen if the population doesn’t stop growing in the world? 

Are these situations possible, hypothetical/improbable or impossible? 

Are these situations about the past or future? 

Does the structure have the present simple on the IF side and Will plus the Infinitive on the other side?

2nd conditional 

If you were a trillionaire, how would your life be different? 

If you could go back in time, which period would you go back to? 

If you had a special power, what would it be? 

If you could change one thing in the world, what would it be? 

Are these situations possible, theoretically/hypothetically speaking or impossible?

Are these situations about the past or present/future?

Does the structure have the Past Simple on the IF side and Would plus the Infinitive on the other side?

3rd conditional 

If you had been born 100 years ago, how would your life have been different? 

If someone had invited you to an all night party last weekend, what would you have done? 

If you had been born into the royal family, how different would your childhood have been? 

If the allies hadn’t won the world wars, what would have happened? 

Are these situations impossible because they are in the past and can’t be changed?

Does the structure have the Past Perfect on the IF side and Would have plus the Participle on the other side?

Mixed conditional 


If you had become a doctor/police officer, how would your life be now?

If the Internet hadn’t been invented, how would the world be at the moment?

Vs. 

If you were a millionaire, how would you have spent your last holidays?

If you were the opposite sex, how would your childhood have been different?


In the first two examples, is a hypothetical situation in the past affecting us now? 

Vs. 

In the last two examples, is a hypothetical condition now affecting us in the past? 


Does the structure in the first two examples have the past perfect on IF side and would plus the infinitive on the other side and alternatively the structure in the last two examples have the past simple on the IF side and would have plus the participle on the other?