A SENSE OF ENGLISH
THE THIRD CONDITIONAL
“If I hadn’t finished the evening off with that cocktail, I wouldn’t have woken up with that terrible headache this morning….” Most of us know the experience that this sentence is referring to, but would you have been able to correctly construct the sentence in English?
This is an example of the Third Conditional, and seemingly it’s being used here to express regret. There is some good news and some bad news about the Third Conditional – let’s start with the latter and then cheer ourselves up!
Third Conditional sentences are difficult to form, as the tenses used (the Past Perfect and the Conditional Perfect) both involve the use of the auxiliary verb “to have”. This means that the sentences are quite long. Sounding natural when speaking also involves mastering the contractions (e.g. “had not” to “hadn’t”, “would have” to “would’ve”, etc).
There is also the added complication that “would” can be replaced by other modal verbs to create a nuance of meaning. This happens in all the different Conditional sentences. That’s why I believe it’s extremely useful to study Conditionals and modal verbs together.
At first, it’s enough to think about getting the structure right. My view is that it’s better to focus on that first, and become very familiar with the tenses that you need for the Third Conditional. Then you can think about adding the fluency.
As a student of other languages myself, I am aware of a tendency that we have to try and speak too quickly, especially when we are surrounded by that language in our every day life. We want to imitate what we hear. But trying to run before we can walk disturbs our later learning patterns. Trying to sound too fluent too soon usually results in mistakes becoming habits.
When habits become very engrained, they are hard to undo. Why not train yourself to be patient from the outset, and get things right bit by bit?
In last month’s article I highlighted the typical “If I/you would…” mistake. Lots of students put “would” in the ‘if clause’ of a Conditional sentence out of habit. That is only correct in a couple of quite rare contexts, yet many students continuously make the mistake and struggle to correct it. Make sure the habits you form in learning English are beneficial ones.
The Third Conditional then, is hard to form because of its complicated structure and extensive use of contractions and modal verbs. The good news, though, is that it is easy to understand when it should be used.
It always relates to a past action/event that had a result. Look back at our example sentence in paragraph 1. Something happened last night (I had that last cocktail on top of all the other alcohol I had drunk) and – because of that - there was a result (I had a terrible headache when I woke up this morning).
Can you see what our Third Conditional sentence does? It imagines the opposite of what really happened, i.e. the opposite action and the opposite result.
“If I hadn’t finished the evening off with that cocktail…” this is telling us that the reality was I DID have a cocktail as my final drink, and….”I wouldn’t have woken up with that terrible headache this morning….” is telling us that the reality was I DID wake up with a headache.
It sounds like the speaker is expressing regret! But without a full context we can’t be sure. Can you think of another emotion that is often expressed through the use of the Third Conditional?Give that some thought.
THE THIRD CONDITIONAL
“If I hadn’t finished the evening off with that cocktail, I wouldn’t have woken up with that terrible headache this morning….” Most of us know the experience that this sentence is referring to, but would you have been able to correctly construct the sentence in English?
This is an example of the Third Conditional, and seemingly it’s being used here to express regret. There is some good news and some bad news about the Third Conditional – let’s start with the latter and then cheer ourselves up!
Third Conditional sentences are difficult to form, as the tenses used (the Past Perfect and the Conditional Perfect) both involve the use of the auxiliary verb “to have”. This means that the sentences are quite long. Sounding natural when speaking also involves mastering the contractions (e.g. “had not” to “hadn’t”, “would have” to “would’ve”, etc).
There is also the added complication that “would” can be replaced by other modal verbs to create a nuance of meaning. This happens in all the different Conditional sentences. That’s why I believe it’s extremely useful to study Conditionals and modal verbs together.
At first, it’s enough to think about getting the structure right. My view is that it’s better to focus on that first, and become very familiar with the tenses that you need for the Third Conditional. Then you can think about adding the fluency.
As a student of other languages myself, I am aware of a tendency that we have to try and speak too quickly, especially when we are surrounded by that language in our every day life. We want to imitate what we hear. But trying to run before we can walk disturbs our later learning patterns. Trying to sound too fluent too soon usually results in mistakes becoming habits.
When habits become very engrained, they are hard to undo. Why not train yourself to be patient from the outset, and get things right bit by bit?
In last month’s article I highlighted the typical “If I/you would…” mistake. Lots of students put “would” in the ‘if clause’ of a Conditional sentence out of habit. That is only correct in a couple of quite rare contexts, yet many students continuously make the mistake and struggle to correct it. Make sure the habits you form in learning English are beneficial ones.
The Third Conditional then, is hard to form because of its complicated structure and extensive use of contractions and modal verbs. The good news, though, is that it is easy to understand when it should be used.
It always relates to a past action/event that had a result. Look back at our example sentence in paragraph 1. Something happened last night (I had that last cocktail on top of all the other alcohol I had drunk) and – because of that - there was a result (I had a terrible headache when I woke up this morning).
Can you see what our Third Conditional sentence does? It imagines the opposite of what really happened, i.e. the opposite action and the opposite result.
“If I hadn’t finished the evening off with that cocktail…” this is telling us that the reality was I DID have a cocktail as my final drink, and….”I wouldn’t have woken up with that terrible headache this morning….” is telling us that the reality was I DID wake up with a headache.
It sounds like the speaker is expressing regret! But without a full context we can’t be sure. Can you think of another emotion that is often expressed through the use of the Third Conditional?Give that some thought.
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