Present and future situations: conditionals 3

Second Conditional:
If I had a pair of wings I could fly.

The Second Conditional is used to talk about 'impossible' situations, in the present or in the future.

If + past simple, would/might/could + infinitive

Examples:

• If I had millions dollars, I'd give a lot to charity.
• If I won the lottery I would build an eco-sustainable village.

 If + were to, infinitive makes the event seem more unlikely


If you were to walk another hundreds kilometres in that direction, you would eventually get to Berlin.

More examples:

• If I had the chance to do it again, I would do it differently.
• If they were thinking of selling, I would want to buy.
• If my team won the Cup, I'd buy champagne for everybody. 

Present and future situations: conditionals 2

First Conditional:
If this afternoon it's sunny, we'll go to the park with our dogs.

We are talking about the future. We are thinking about a particular condition or situation in the future, and the result of this condition.
There is a real possibility that this situation will happen.


If + present simple, will/going to/may/might/could + infinitive

For example:

If in twenty years most of the villages are self-sufficient, we will not need so much electricity to live.

If in the future we don't need so much electricity, we will not need new power-plants.

If we consume less electricity, there could be less contamination of CO2.

Present and future situations: conditionals

Zero conditional:
If you visit London, go to the British Museum, the oldest public museum in the world.

The zero conditional form is used when we talk about things that are generally or always true.
Note that we are not talking about a specific event but something which is generally true.

If/When/Unless plus a present form + present simple or imperative

For example:

If we don't recycle:

If you don't recycle paper, the trees that make our oxygen won't last so much longer. 

If you recycle cans, the energy that would have been used to make more cans will be saved. 



 When you recycle, space in landfills are saved. 
Also, things such as plastic bottles can last up to 1 million years.

 The best thing to do is re-use as much of these things as we can.
If we didnt recycle land fills will fill up.

Past situations

Past tenses can be used to talk about unlikely, imaginary or impossible situations in the present, past or future

I wish I hadn't had so much wine before playing..









 The form wish + past perfect can be used to express wishes, regrets and criticisms about the past.

example
- I wish I'd known this things when I was younger

also we can use wish to express wishes or to comment the present

- I wish I could come to the party, but I have to wake up early tomorrow to study
- I wish I could go to run with you, but my leg is still injured and I cannot yet

• Another form is:

I should have put some cream before going fishing, now I am sun-burned





The form should + perfect infinitive can also be used to express regrets and criticisms about the past.

example
- I should have set the alarm clock before I went to sleep. Now I am late for work.
- She shouldn't have spoken so directly to her boss, now she won't be receiving the promotion.