Do you know what a conditional is? What do we use it for? How many are there? Well… These questions can sometimes be a bit complicated to understand but don’t worry, we got you covered!
That’s why improving your communication capacity can be a bit of a challenge, but as we practice together, we hope that you can be able to surpass any type of challenge.
Today we are going to revisit the conditionals, but this time our focus will be on the “mixed conditionals“. Let’s study them👍.
REMEMBER THAT THE "CONDITIONALS"...
Are grammatical structures that focus on the relationship between a condition in two sentences (a subordinate or conditioning and a principal or consequent).
Both are related by a connector, which most of the time is “if”, and can be used to describe different situations that expand from cause-effect, realities, and even 100 % hypothetical situations in different verbal times.
From those structures, different conditionals are born, and the ones that stand out the most are the mixed conditionals, which are the ones that we will focus on today.
NOW, LET'S TAKE A LOOK AT "MIXED CONDITIONALS"
The particularity of these conditionals is that in both sentences (the main and subordinate), you can find different types of verbal times.
There are two types of mixed conditionals, and we will show them to you in the following chart…
In the previous example, you can see that the sentences are in different verbal times (past perfect and present conditional).
On the other hand, we can notice that both situations are unreal, mainly because the subject did not leave his work early and he is not in his house either.
In general terms, the mixed conditionals combine the patterns of conditional sentences of the second and third degree.
- The second-degree conditional sentences o talk about unreal situations in current times.
- The third-degree conditional sentences refer to unreal situations in the past.
- The conjugation of each type of sentence determines the type of mixed conditional that exists.
TYPES OF MIXED CONDITIONALS
1. ACTUAL RESULT WITH A PAST CONDITIONAL
These conditionals present an unreal condition that happened in the past and their probable result in the present is also unreal.
The verbal time of the subordinate sentence is the past perfect, whereas the main sentence has to be used in conditional form.
In these types of mixed conditional sentences, you can also use other modal verbs in the main sentences such as could or might, instead of using “would”.
With this type of structure, you would be expressing certainty, permission, or a recommendation about a result. Here you have an example:
2. PRESENT RESULT WITH A PAST CONDITIONAL
These types of mixed conditionals refer to an unreal situation in the present and its probable result (even though unreal) in the past.
The verbal time of the subordinate sentence is the simple past, and the present conditional is the main part of the sentence. Let’s look at an example:
We hope that this post has been of help, and starting today, you begin to practice even more, and why don’t you try to use the mixed conditionals more? If you want to receive more information, don’t be shy and ask us, we will answer any doubt you may have.
