Verbs: conditional tense

These tenses are less common. Some of them are rare in spoken English and mostly reserved for written text. Still, they are powerful and common enough to be explained now.

All tenses until now describe something that is certainly true. An event happened. An event is going on. In the future, we expect an event to happen.

But things don’t always work out that nicely. Some things might happen. Some things will only happen if another thing is true. In other words, the sentence is a “condition”, and we use conditional tenses.

Each conditional can be written in a different order without changing meaning. It may require adding extra words, though, so I recommend sticking to the default order for now.

Future Conditional

Use the construction …

If X happens, Y will happen.

The first part uses the simple present, while the second part uses the simple future.

Present (Zero) Conditional

Use the construction …

If X happens, Y happens.

Both parts use the simple present. It’s often called a zero conditional, because there’s no uncertainty. Y is the natural consequence of X and will always follow immediately.

Past Conditional

Use the construction …

If X happened, Y would be happening.

The first part is simple past, the second continuous present.

If something in the past is true, then at present something else would be true.

Both parts of the conditional are currently false:

• He isn’t scoring goals now
• Which means he’s not as good of a soccer player.

But on the condition that he was a better player, he would be scoring now.

Past Perfect Conditional

Use the construction …

If X had happened, Y would have happened

Again, both parts are false. The chance to change it lies in the past, but now we’re in that state of earlier than before now. (That’s why it’s the perfect tense!)

Mark might have lots of time now. But this is about the past. If he had had more time in the past, then he would have visited his grandparents in the past.

Mixed Conditional

Mixed conditionals mix two different timings.

Present result of past condition: If X had happened (in the past), Y would happen (now).

Past result of present (or continuing) condition: If X happens (in the present), Y would have happened (in the past).