🗣️ HYPOTHETICAL SITUATIONS & CONDITIONALS – how to talk about possibilities and give advice (B1)
Level B1 (Intermediate – Conditionals and Hypotheses)🗣️ B1 CONDITIONAL CHALLENGE
STEP 1 DI 10
📌 Lesson Contents (B1)
- 🌤️ First Conditional: Real possibilities about the future
✨ Second Conditional: Dreams and imaginary situations - 💡 “If I were you”: giving advice
🌤️ First Conditional: Real possibilities about the future
We use it to talk about likely or possible events in the future. The structure joins a clause with IF + Present Simple and a result with WILL + base form.
- ✅ Correct: If it rains tomorrow, I will stay at home.
- ❌ Deadly mistake: *If it will rain tomorrow, I will stay…*
(In the First Conditional, never put the future “will” after “if”! Use the Present Simple).
✨ Second Conditional: Dreams and imaginary situations
We use it for purely imaginary or impossible situations in the present or future (e.g. winning the lottery, having superpowers). The structure is IF + Past Simple in the condition and WOULD + base form in the result.
- ✅ Correct: If I won the lottery, I would buy a big house.
- ❌ Deadly mistake: *If I would win the lottery…*
(Never put “would” right after the word “if”!).
💡 “If I were you”: giving advice
To give someone advice with the Second Conditional, the standard expression is If I were you, I would…
Note: even with singular subjects (I, he, she), the formal Second Conditional often uses were instead of *was*.
- ✅ If I were you, I would study harder.
- ❌ *In place of you…* (Wrong word-for-word translation).
By Francesco P
Click to listen highlighted text!