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The Third Conditional 3

The document discusses the third conditional, which is used to express impossible ideas and hypotheses about the past. It describes situations that did not happen and imagines the result if they had occurred. The third conditional has the structure: "If + S + PAST PERFECT, S + WOULD/COULD/MIGHT + HAVE + PAST PARTICIPLE". Examples are provided to illustrate expressing impossible past situations and their imagined outcomes using the third conditional form. Practice exercises are included for learners to complete third conditional sentences.

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John Lee
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60 views2 pages

The Third Conditional 3

The document discusses the third conditional, which is used to express impossible ideas and hypotheses about the past. It describes situations that did not happen and imagines the result if they had occurred. The third conditional has the structure: "If + S + PAST PERFECT, S + WOULD/COULD/MIGHT + HAVE + PAST PARTICIPLE". Examples are provided to illustrate expressing impossible past situations and their imagined outcomes using the third conditional form. Practice exercises are included for learners to complete third conditional sentences.

Uploaded by

John Lee
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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The third conditional

• As most of you have correctly written, the first conditional is used to describe possible and likely
outcomes in the future:

→ I will be broke very soon if I don’t start earning some money.

• The second conditional describes situations in which the outcome is unlikely and unrealistic in the
future and/or the present. (Što bi bilo kad bi bilo)

→If I were stranded on a desert island, I would set a fire for the planes to see me.

(But you are not stranded at the moment, and you probably won’t be in the future.)

• As for the form, again, most of you got it correctly:

1st Conditional – If + Present Simple, Future simple or Imperative

2nd Conditional – If + Past simple, would/could/might + infinitive

• Now we will deal with the third conditional.

→ If I had known the movie was going to be so bad, I wouldn’t have wasted money on cinema tickets.

(But I didn’t know it, so I did waste money.)

→ I wouldn’t have felt sick if I hadn’t eaten so much.

(But I did eat so much, so I did get sick.)

It is used to express impossible ideas and hypotheses about the past. They are impossible because
these things already happened and we cannot change them. We are imagining what could have
happened.

In other words, we describe a situation that didn't happen, and imagine the result of this situation.

• FORM:

If + S + PAST PERFECT, S + WOULD/COULD/MIGHT + HAVE + PAST PARTICIPLE

→We arrived late so we didn’t meet Kevin’s girlfriend.

What is the situation, and what is the result in this example?

The situation makes the conditional part of the sentence – it is the condition necessary for the other
part, the result to happen.

So:

If we had arrived earlier, we would have met Kevin’s girlfriend.

AND NOT

If we had met Kevin’s girlfriend, we would have arrived earlier.


Practice:

❶ Complete the sentences to make third conditional sentences.

1 He ______would have been________ (be) happier if he _____had stayed_________ (stay) at home.

2 We __wouldn’t have gotten____ (not / get) married if we ___hadn’t gone___________ (not / go) to the
same university.

3 She ___wouldn’t have met____ (not / meet) him if she ____had come__________ (not / come) to
London.

4 He ___would have taken____ (take) a taxi if he ___had had___________ (have) enough money.

5 I ___would have called______ (call) you if I __hadn’t forgotten___ (not / forget) my phone.

6 We __would have come____________ (come) if we __had been______ (be) invited.

7 If Bob _had known_______ (know) my address, he ____would have sent____ (send) me a postcard.

8 If the car __had been_____________ (be) a little cheaper, we ___would have bought_______ (buy) it.

9 I __would have visited________ (visit) Dave if I ___had known_________ (know) he was in the hospital
last week.

❷ Complete the sentences with your own examples, keeping the structure of the third conditional.
Then, come up with your own examples.

1 If I had listened to my parents, I wouldn’t have been in trouble.

2 I wouldn’t have gone to prison if I had had better lawyer.

3 If the spider hadn’t bitten Pete, he wouldn’t have been in hospital.

4 If I hadn’t lied to my friend, I could have gone to his birthday.

5 If I had seen the task earlier, I wouldn’t have been late with my homework.

6 If I had worked harder, I would have gotten better grade.

7 If I hadn’t been in Portugal, I wouldn’t have learned Portuguese.

8 If I had been in Italy last month, I Would have been in trouble now.

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