Second conditional
In this programme we look at the second conditional - a way of talking about impossible or unlikely events or situations.
Our challenger is Anna Lee from South Korea. We ask Anna to imagine that she could meet anyone in the world... who will she say she'd like to meet?
In the programme Anna is also asked to say these sounds:
Listen to the programme!
To talk about an impossible or improbable situation, we can use if and the past simple together with would and the infinitive:Positive and Negative: If | Past simple | Would / wouldn't | Infinitive (without to) |
If
| you lost your passport
| it would
| take ages to get another one. |
If | it cost me a fortune | I wouldn't | be able to take you on holiday again. |
Question: If | Past simple | Would / wouldn't | Infinitive (without to) |
If
| it cost me a fortune
| would I
| be able to take you on holiday again? |
If | I couldn't take you on holiday | wouldn't we | save a lot of money? |
Download Catherine's grammar explanation and table (pdf - 56 K)
Download this programme (mp3 - 1.8 MB)
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Now it's your turn to practise the second conditional. Go to our quiz page on this subject here.
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Learn It - 'If I was' / 'If I were'
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Should have - how to talk about things in the past that we would change if we could
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