How to form Conditionals (If clauses) in English

(Transcribed by TurboScribe.ai. Go Unlimited to remove this message.) Hi, and welcome to the 3 English Experts. I'm Birgit. I'm Dave. And I'm Rebecca. And welcome to this episode. 3 English Experts is your English podcast to help you speak better English and create a positive and happy mindset for your English learning journey. Hello, everyone, and welcome to a new episode of our podcast. And today we are going to talk about if clauses. It's a grammatical subject, and it's important to talk about. And we have heard that some of you enjoyed the grammar exercise or the episode. So we thought we're going to talk about this. It's hopefully giving you some ideas how to use those clauses correctly. And since I have written the grammar books, those two guys that you're going to introduce in your time. You're a grammar queen. Come on. I wouldn't call myself a grammar queen. It sounds so weird. Okay. I love grammar anyway. So that's what I do. And let's have a look at this then. Okay. The if clauses, a lot of people remember from school, this was a subject. And this is containing three different types. We have even four. But I don't dwell so much on the zero and the first one, because for German learners, it's not so difficult to manage those, because it's very similar to what they translate literally in their mind. If I say, I will take an umbrella if it rains. It's literally the same in German, wenn es regnet, werde ich ein Schirm mitnehmen. So this is not such a problem. It's easy. Yeah. I find the same. I find most people can form one pretty easily, actually. So I test them and I ask them to translate the sentence, for example, and then most of them come up with the right sentence. So correct. I can explain and I will explain, of course. What you do is you use if in one part of the clause plus the simple present tense. And in the other part of the clause, you use will. So, wenn A passiert, dann folgt daraus B. Ursache, Folge, cause and effect. What we use quite often in speech, I think that happens every day. Yeah. Yeah. I think it's pretty common, isn't it? If clauses. Yeah. Yeah. With the second clause, that's the hypothetical thing. That's a little more tricky. And we don't even say that too often. I don't think I have used the hypothetical sentence in German today. You never know. But probably not. I probably haven't. Yeah. Well, of course, I could say because the sun is not shining today. If the sun shone or was shining, better maybe. Was shining. Yeah. That's not a best example. I would go and have an ice cream or something. Well, the rule here is, and this is something to learn, because if we translate a sentence like this, wenn die Sonne scheine würde, dann würde ich. So we have würde twice in our head. A lot of people want to translate that. That is something you shouldn't do because it doesn't sound good. I don't know. It's not correct anyway. So use if plus simple past tense. And then in the second part of the clause would. So if I won the lottery, just hypothetically, I don't even play, I would maybe then have a break from work. Yeah. Rebecca. Yeah. I think this is the problem that people think it's about the past because you have to use the past simple. So people think, oh, we're talking about the past, but we're actually not talking about the past. We're talking about something that might happen in the future. And so I think that's confusing for a lot of people. Yeah. And this würde, this double would. So the classic mistake is if I would win the lotto, I would buy a house. And of course, it's not as if I won the lotto. If and would never could. We have this little ditty. If it would never could. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it does. There is an ausnahme. There are some exceptions where you can put them together. But generally, if and would never could, a lot of people can remember that. And that's a very good point. I heard that before. People say, well, why is it the past tense? Because this is about a hypothetical thing that could happen in the future, as you just said. But remember this, and this is what we forget about. That's not the best idea with the gewinnen, but wenn es regnete, wenn es heute regnete, würde ich zu Hause bleiben. So in our German grammar, we do have the similar thing, which we don't use in our speech. But English follows this rule much more, using the past simple past to create this hypothetical sentence here. Yeah, Rebecca. I just have a question. Can you say gewann, wenn ich im lotto... Yeah, exactly. What's the correct form of this declineate, declineate? Yeah, gewann, gewenn, gewinne, gewann. Yes, gewann. I think that's gewann. But gewinnenwürde is so just more natural. I think everybody would always say gewinnenwürde, they wouldn't say gewann. What did you learn at university then when you learned German? Dave, do you remember this? No, I have no idea. I don't remember that at all. You blocked it out from all... Do you remember your teacher, by the way, hopefully? No. It's a long time ago, it's a long time ago. Did you actually go to lessons or what were you doing? On occasions. On occasions. Okay. I actually had a very... But if I had gone to more classes, Birgit, here you go, the third one. If I had gone to more classes, I would have got a better grade. Excellent. Introducing, yeah. Or you would have remembered your teacher. Also. Absolutely. Yeah. Thank you, Dave. That's introducing to the third conditional clause. And that's a tricky one. So if I ask people to translate, hätte ich das gewusst, dann hätte ich das machen können. Again, we have twice hätte. We don't want to have would twice in the English clause. So what has David just said? If I had done that, if I had studied, and here he contracts a little as a native, if I'd done. So sometimes people don't recognize this. If I had studied harder, I would have remembered my teacher. So we have if and past perfect plus would and present perfect. Get so excited about the perfect. I mean, really, I get excited about the perfect. That's such a brilliant phrase there, right there. And you don't know why you're the grammar queen. I get excited about the perfect. Sorry. Yeah. So when I explained this phrase. So the second one was a hypothetical things, things that could happen, but they are not true, no fact. And this is something about the past. You can't change. Yeah. Yeah. So the past you can't change. Yeah. I have to say in German, I mean, conditional three, this hätte ich gewusst, I mean, it is difficult. And I remember struggling through that at university. And even now, when I start, if I try to perform conditional three, everything gets a bit slow. And I want to put a Gewiesenwähre on everything, but I know it's not always right. But I always want to just put a Gewiesenwähre on something somewhere. Yes. And I think the trick here is to find one sentence, one reference sentence. Yes. Like you can do that with conditional two and three. If I won the lottery or in the lottery, if I won the lotto, I would buy a Tesla or whatever. And I have a wonderful sentence. One of my learners, she repeated it for a day. And she never forgot about the third conditional. If this lady hadn't dragged me away from the street, then in Singapore, I would have stayed forever. I would have been run over by a car. That's very dramatic. Very dramatic. Oh, I hope she remembers. Yeah. But she remembers. You see, find something that's true for you. Like David, if he had studied harder, yeah, he would have known the Chinese name. If I hadn't spent as much time in the bar. You would have known your conditional three. And I would have got to know my teachers as well. I can't believe you don't remember your teacher. And now you're a teacher. That's terrible. Yes. I had a very nice, nice grammar lately. But anyway, it's nice of you being so honest that you admit you could have studied harder. And that's the other thing. The useful part of this third if clause I always teach is regrets. I could have been better. I could have done more sport. I should have saved. Yeah, exactly. The should have as well as a good one. Well, we should have spent more time on the marketing campaign. So again, it's this in the company, you're looking at a project when it's finished and you're talking about what was good and what wasn't. And you can use it. So if we had invested more in marketing, we would have attracted more customers. Or if we hadn't changed this, this would have happened. So it's this kind of looking back and reflecting on things. What could have worked differently? Yeah. And I think although we don't say these sentences on a daily basis very often, I don't say things like Hätt ich das mal gemacht, dann wäre der Hund jetzt netter oder freundlicher. Yeah, I don't say that very often. But in a business context, I always say this is useful, it's very useful. And you also repeat present perfect, should have done, could have known and understand maybe the concept of the perfect, present perfect, past perfect, have done, had done. So I, from a grammatical point of view, I think that's useful. It is. And I think Dave, you had a point about negotiating, right? Because you do these negotiating courses. Yeah, exactly. So I think reading between the lines, if you hear, if you can listen really carefully and make out exactly what the other person is saying, for example, if they say, if we reduce our prices, will you buy more? Of course, this is the conditional one. So it's a realistic situation. But they said, if we reduced our prices, you hear the reduced, so it's the past tense, would in the other part, then that's an unrealistic situation or hypothetical. So less likely. It could happen, but it's less likely at the moment. So it's, if you read between the lines, the person is less likely to do that. So you can maybe read through how sure or how unsure or how likely something could be. Another one that just came to mind is if you're wanting to give people advice, we often use the second form then there. If I were you, I would, okay. So giving advice or if you want to offer suggestions or something like that, that's also an ideal way using the second conditional. If I were you. Absolutely. If I were you, I would. Yeah. Because I can't be you. It's hypothetical because I can't be you. But if I were you, I would do boom, boom, boom. And of course, we have the question here about if I was, so often people say, if I was you, because I was, but in this case, we actually use were. Some people actually in slang people say, if I was you, if I was you, but it's not grammatically correct. But if I were you, I would. Oh, that's a very interesting, very good tips with the negotiation and reading between the lines. Yes. And I think people understand it more easily than they are able to use it themselves. That's then the problem when they need to look at the. I mean, what Dave was saying that it's quite a high level of English because you've got to be listening and you've got to get used to that sound of like, okay, this is more realistic. This is less realistic. That's quite high level. But if you're doing negotiations on a daily basis, it's definitely something worth learning, practicing, thinking about. And practicing is like looking, maybe it's a grammar exercise and repeating a few sentences. Maybe at your book, bigot. That's what I wrote it for, after I'd realized the teachers in school used the same material that was free on the Internet. I thought I could add maybe some sentences for each. So which book is this in? It's not in the Big Five, right? No, it's not in there. It's Englische Grammatik Richtig Anwenden, like two parts of the book. And that's focusing on sentences and exercising each grammar tense on like a page, 10 sentences on, flip over the page and you'll find the answers. Very easy to handle. It's a good like exercise book, basically. Yeah, it's a classical exercise book, yeah. So we'll put the link in the show notes. OK, so we were going to ask each other some if questions, right? Yes. Dave, do you want to kick off? I think as the first ones, we talked about it before, Birgit, that they're quite easy. So I thought we'd go straight into a second conditional, remember? So the hypothetical situation. Here we go, Birgit, for you. If you could have dinner with anyone in the world, who would it be and why? Notice the could here, guys. It's the past tense of the can, right? Also a bit tricky, but. Oh, my God, I'm not very good at coming up with my favourite person I'd like to. But thinking of grandma and I had contact with her. It's a lady from New York, the grammar table lady. And I think I would very much enjoy having dinner with her. So can you put a sentence, please? OK, sorry. Full sentence. Full sentence. If I could have dinner with anyone in the world, I would very much like to have dinner with Ellen Chauvin. Very good. Bravo. Over to you, Rebecca. OK. Last one for Dave. So we're going to go into a third condition. So we know that Dave lived in Germany. So if you hadn't moved to Germany, if you hadn't studied German, where would you have gone otherwise? Would you have stayed in England or would you have gone somewhere else, do you think? That is an incredibly difficult question. And I have absolutely no idea. But I think I will make it up. If I hadn't moved to Germany, I would have stayed in the UK. What I would have done, I have absolutely no idea. But I would have stayed in the UK and see what happens. So if you hadn't become a teacher, what would you have done? Can you imagine what you might have done? Not really. It's not easy. It's not easy. I don't really know what I would have done. I enjoy doing what I do. So I'm happy that I'm taking the route. Yeah, that's no regret. And often we use the phrase, if you could turn back time, if you remember that phrase from the song, Tina Turner. Oh no, Cher. Sorry, it's Cher. Well said, Rebecca. I didn't know. If you could turn back time, if you could turn back time. Fantastic. You should be a singer. We need to do a karaoke episode. Karaoke English. Name that tune. Okay. A question to Rebecca now. And I'm going for the third conditioner because that's good if listeners hear that more often, repeatedly. Rebecca, if you had won the lottery, let's stay with that in the lottery. If you had played at all, I don't know, when you were really young, just let's say... When I was really young? Yeah, if you had won the lottery, a lot of money at the age of 25, what would you have done? I was thinking at the age of like 13, I would have bought a horse, I think. When I was a teenager, I desperately wanted a horse. So if I had won the lotto when I was 12, that's like, but I wouldn't have played the lotto because you can't play when you're 12. You didn't have the money. What would I have done? Good question. I think I would have used it for traveling. I think I would have traveled further, yes. What about retiring? I would have retired. It's a bit boring though, isn't it? If I had won the lotto when I was 25, I don't know, I would have traveled around the world. But not to Germany first, you wouldn't have traveled only to... I'm not sure it would have been top of my list, but I was already in Germany when I was 25. So I would have donated it to a little dog charity in Spain or something. And now you have not a horse, but a dog. Yes. Yes. I would have done that. I think. Wonderful. Okay. Do we have some more? I wanted to ask you the same one, actually, about the famous person you would like to have lunch with. Oh, I don't know, really. Because you can think of a famous person, David. You know. Absolutely. Yes. Stephen Gerrard. Stephen Gerrard. Stevie G? Stevie G. Sorry, the sentence. Oh, bigot. Oh, okay then. What about Kloppy? Jürgen. Jürgen. I thought you were going to say Jürgen, actually. Yeah. Okay. Jürgen. Football guy. Yeah. Yeah. Of course. Of course. Or maybe if I could have dinner with anybody, I would have dinner with Lothar. Lothar. Lothar Matthäus. Would you give him free English lessons? Absolutely. Yeah. Cool. If you're listening, Lothar, there's the offer. I'm here, ready to coach you, no problem at all. Yes. Just a fascinating character. I think he would be fun. We sometimes play this game on a Friday night, me and my husband. So if you could have drinks with Arnold Schwarzenegger, Sylvester Stallone. Who's the other one we do? Dolph Lundgren, I think. Going back to these 80s kind of characters. Who would you have dinner with or had drinks with? Dave? Arnie. Yeah, me too. Full sentence, please. Oh, sorry. Sorry. If I could have drinks with anyone, it would be Arnie. Why would it be Arnie? I love his careers. I mean, it's not just one career. He's had four, three, four different careers in his life. I mean. He could take you to the gym. You said you're going to the gym. Absolutely. He could be your gym buddy. Yeah. Or my trainer. If I could afford it, I would use him as my coach. Yes. Hypothetical. If I could afford. Yes. Yes. Very big if. Okay. Another one for Birgit. If you had stayed in the UK, if you hadn't moved back to Germany, if you had stayed, what would you have done and where would you have lived? Do you think? Oh, if I had stayed on. I would have studied hopefully there, but that was far too expensive. Couldn't afford that. And I would have stayed maybe in the region where I was. That was like Melbourne Hills, Worcestershire, Londonish. I quite liked it there. Sorry. I know Sheffield, but I don't think I would have moved to Sheffield. I don't think so. That's okay. We don't blame you. We'll let you off. It's all right. You left. I was going to say, have you noticed where we are? We're not there anymore. Okay. Sorry, Sheffield people. Dave, if you hadn't studied German, would you have studied another language? Would you have done like French or Spanish or something else? In retrospect, if I could turn back the clock, I would have done Spanish for sure, because I'm now in Spain. It would have made my life a lot easier. But back then I never knew I was coming here. So, yeah. Birgit, if you could travel in time, would you travel into the past or would you travel into the future? Oh, I think I would travel into the past, actually. Yeah. Yeah. I'm a bit cowardish. To know what's happening in the future. I think I agree with that. Yeah. The 80s. I'm quite fond of the 80s at the moment. I don't know. I would love that. I would love to go back. But no smartphone anymore. That's good. Back to 1984 or something. Actually, that reminds me of possibly introducing our next topic for the next session, because talking about going into the future and the past is a very good book I'm reading at the moment called Second Sleep. OK. That's all I'm going to say. I was wondering where you were going with that. I was thinking, what's it got to do? I'm going to review 1984, the book. Very good book, but I was just, yeah. Second Sleep. OK. Is it a new book or an old book? It's relatively old, but absolutely amazing. Absolutely amazing. Second Sleep. Tell us about it next time then. Will do. Because? We are going to talk about good books for you to take maybe on holiday or good books generally from different spheres, whether it be English, whether it be, for example, business, whether it be fiction, fiction books, whatever, factual books, different genres. Different levels as well. I think some books are more you can recommend for different levels if you're English, depending on what you like, but also what kind of level you are. Yeah, absolutely. Very good. All right. OK. OK. See you next week. Bye. See you next week. Bye for now. Thank you. Thank you so much for pressing play today. If you have any comments, questions or perhaps suggestions for future episodes, feel free to contact us at our website, 3EnglishExperts.com. Have a great day and see you next time.