Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Conditionals
Conditionals
Conditionals
Conditional Types
Wish / If only
First Type: Possible & Probable conditions
Wish and if only can be used with would and past tenses. These structures express
regrets, and wishes for unlikely or impossible things.
If only is more emphatic. (Traducción: Ójala, Desearía)
3. We use would... to talk about things that we would like people (not) to do.
This often expresses dissatisfaction or annoyance: it can sound critical.
I wish you would go home. If only the postman would come!
We can use this structure to talk about things as well as people.
I wish this damned car would start. If only it would stop raining!
Sample rephrasing
First Conditional:
- Be careful – someone’s going to see you!
- If you are careful, nobody will see you!
- If + Subject + present simple, subject + future will (aff or neg)
Second Conditional:
Third Conditional:
-Tom was not going to come to dinner the next day because you insulted him.
-If Tom hadn’t insulted him, he would have come to dinner.
- If + Subject + past perfect (neg or aff), subject + would/ could/might + have + pp + C
Wish / If only
I’m sorry, but I can’t help you now.
I wish I could help you.
I would have gone to the concert, but I didn’t have a ticket.
I wish I had had a ticket. / I had bought a ticket
Other samples
- His book will be published provided he takes his manuscript to the editor.
Unless he takes his manuscript to the editor, his book won’t be published.
Unles + present simple, future simple (aff or neg)
- You drink too much coffee, that's why you don't sleep.
If you didn’t drank too much coffee, you would sleep.
-You never talk to me, so you don't know anything about me.
If you talked to me, you would know something about me.