Unless, Only if & Mixed Conditionals

Unless, Only if & Mixed Conditionals

Hi everyone! It’s Jennifer here with another lesson on conditional sentences in English. If you watched the previous lesson, then you know about the homework. That was a real conditional, by the way. I mixed the time periods. Something happened in the past, and now we have a result in the present.

If you watched, then you know. For homework, I asked you to create your own mixed conditional. However, I wanted you to use your imagination and create an unreal conditional sentence. If something had happened in the past, what would be different now? Let’s take a look at some of the examples you shared. Let’s start with Saddam’s example. I’ll suggest a few changes.

Claire wrote: And next… We’re seeing negative verbs in different clauses. Another example: Negative verbs can use contractions. Here we have an example: Right? Finish it now. Andrea shared four different examples and we see a variety of verb forms. Look at number four. It’s very interesting.

It is a mixed conditional, but note the time periods: if we had won the competition in the past… we would be going to visit Jennifer next week. Susanna wrote: There’s a progressive verb. If you’d like to see more of my corrections to student examples, then visit me on Facebook.

Thank you to everyone who completed the task These are the names of additional students who posted their examples in the comments Let’s summarize the patterns we just saw in those unreal mixed conditionals We use if + the past perfect to refer to an unreal past.

Then we use would, could, or might to refer to an unreal present in the result clause. We can also use a progressive verb in that result clause as in would be doing, could be doing, might be doing. In the bonus task, I challenged you to use a structure that we haven’t studied together yet. Unless.

I asked you to rewrite two sentences that use “unless.” How can we restate the ideas using “if”? First, am I talking about real or unreal situations? One student had the right idea. Sergey wrote both are just statements about everyday habits, right?

That’s correct, Sergey. These are real situations. I’m talking about everyday routines and habits, so they’re not imaginary. We need to treat these as real present conditionals so the verb forms mainly stay the same. Now let’s take a look at some answers. There was more than one way to rewrite these sentences.

Okay, Alshaimaa wrote: Let’s just remove that comma. Now here’s a completely different variation, but the meaning is basically the same. If I get at least seven hours of sleep, I can stay focused during the day and And Marat rewrote the sentences very much like Alshaimaa did: Let’s add a period.

So “unless” has the meaning of “if not.” The negative meaning is understood. If something doesn’t happen, if a condition is not met, then we won’t get the result we want. Another way to restate this idea is by using “only if,” but then we focus on the positive meaning. “Only if” emphasizes that this one condition must be met for the result to happen.

Let’s make sure you understand the meaning of “unless.” Try restating a couple more sentences for me, okay? Now try it one more way. Remember don’t use “unless” and “if” together in the same conditional sentence. And if you’re talking about the future - a real or likely future - use the present tense with “unless” just like we use the present tense with “if” to talk about the future.

Here’s what I’d like you to do for your first homework task. Here’s my example: Unless I find time to practice regularly, I won’t master new songs on the piano. You can post your examples in the comments, but I won’t offer corrections until the next lesson.

Here’s a bonus task to challenge you, and it will lead into our next topic about conditional sentences. Take a close look. How are these sentences different in meaning? Again I invite you to share your ideas in the comments, but I won’t confirm answers until our next lesson. That’s all for now.