Conditional sentences
Conditional sentences
Conditional sentences are complex sentences with a main clause (or ‘result clause) expressing an action and the ‘condition clause’ that contains another action or situation that needs to be fulfilled in order for the result to be true. These types of sentences are joined by the nexus IF. This nexus expresses the condition that is necessary to be true for the action to happen.
Study this example:
If the weather is nice, we will go swimming today.
In our example, the result will happen (we go swimming) only if the condition is true (the weather is nice). If the condition is not true, (if the weather isn’t nice), then the action won’t take place.
We have in Spanish a specific tense that expresses condition and it is called ‘tiempo condicional’ but there is not a conditional tense in English. Instead, we use different types of conditional structures depending on the condition.
We are going to study now only the first type of conditional sentences, although it is important you know that we will need to use different types of conditional sentences depending on the probability of the condition.
Look at the picture on the left to understand.
Form and usage of the 1st Conditional
The structure of a first conditional is:
IF + SUBJECT +PRESENT SIMPLE, SUBJECT +WILL + BASE OF THE MAIN VERB. or SUBJECT +WILL + BASE OF THE MAIN VERB + IF + SUBJECT +PRESENT SIMPLE
Let’s take our example to study the First Conditional structure: If the weather is nice, we will go swimming today
conditionresult
We will go swimming today if the weather is nice.
result condition
As you can see from the example, we can start the sentence either with the condition or with the result. The only difference is that if we start with the condition then we need to add a comma (,) after the condition whereas if you start your sentence with the result, there is no need for a comma.
Using the first conditional: to talk about things which are possible to happen in the present or the future because the condition expressed is easy or reasonable to be fulfilled.
Nexus used in Conditional sentences
The nexus is the Word that links condition and result in a conditional sentence. We are going to use these nexuses: IF - Unless - Provided
Look at the examples:
If the weather is nice, we will go to the park. We won’t go to the park unless the weather is nice. Provided the weather is nice, we will go to the park.
The result in all these sentences is the same: going to the park. Observe that the link ‘unless’ has a negative meaning and that’s the reason we express the result using a negative sentence.