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This unit explains the rules of conditionals (‘if’ sentences) and reported speech (saying what someone else said in a direct way).
There are five common conditionals:
-zero conditional: for situations that are always (or generally) true, like facts. For example: “If water is above 100°C, it boils”. Both clauses use the present simple tense.
-first conditional: when the situation is possible or likely to happen, like promises or threats. For example: “If it’s sunny tomorrow, we’ll go to the beach”. The first clause uses if + present simple, the second one: will (or other modal) + base form of the verb.
-second conditional: when the likelihood is less certain that that of the first conditional, like dreams and hypothetical situations. For example: “If he was in Italy, he could visit his family”. The first clause has if + past simple, the second one has the modal + base form of the verb.
-third conditional: for imaginary situations, in a past point of view. “If it hadn’t been raining yesterday, we could have gone to the beach”. The first clause uses if + past perfect, the second clause uses a modal + have + past participle.
-mixed conditional: for a imaginary scenario with present results. For example: “If it hadn’t been raining last week, we might still be on vacation now”. The first clause is that of the third conditional, the second one from the second conditional.
When we use reported speech, we change the direct speech to tell someone what was said. For example:
-direct speech: Amie said to James: “I am going on vacation this week”.
-reported speech: Amie told James that she was going on vacation that week.
Some changes are made compared to the direct speech, like a back-shifting to past tenses, the change of pronouns, the change of dates (today becomes that day) or the drop of ‘do’ and the adding of ‘if’ when reporting questions. Back-shifting isn’t always necessary, but we have to make sure there isn’t any confusion possible. Lists of changes in words and tenses, from direct to reported speech, exists. For example, we go form the present perfect continuous to the past perfect continuous, or will to would.
