جملات شرطی - What if? - How about if?

Conditionals - What if? - How about if?

Hi everyone! It’s Jennifer here with another lesson on conditional sentences in English. If you’re wondering when this playlist will ever end, well…let me tell you that this will be the last lesson for a while because we have covered all kinds of conditionals. We’ve looked at real and unreal conditionals in the past, present, and future.

We also practiced mixed conditionals, inverted conditionals, and implied conditionals. We also looked at a number of useful expressions with IF. If you’ve had any doubts about using conditionals in English, I certainly hope that this series has erased all of them. You’ve put in a lot of work keeping up with all of my assignments, and as usual, you did wonderfully with the homework for Lesson 12.

Take a look at these great examples with “if nothing else,” which is used to emphasize the one good thing we see in a person or a situation. Let’s start with Mollie’s. She wrote: Zain talked about Japanese animation. Note my suggested edits. Ra’ed showed us a middle position with “if nothing else.” Let’s take a look and note one small change I’m going to make to what he wrote.

Francoise’s example shows us how easy and natural it is to pair “if nothing else” with “but.” Thanks for those fantastic examples. In the bonus task, I challenged all of you to explain my use of “if only.” I gave you these statements. There were a number of good explanations. Let’s read some. Claire wrote: Great the key words here are “regrets” and “wishes.” Very good.

I like this one. Exactly. Mahmoud agrees, and he writes in a bit more detail. Looking at sentence A: Right. There’s a contrast between what we did do… what we didn’t. We didn’t book the tour. If only we had booked the tour, the results would have been better. And as for sentence B: Right.

So it’s not possible to buy more. Ah if only they had two more tickets but they don’t. In Susanna’s explanation, she focuses on what exactly is implied. She gives us that implied result. Vijay nicely and concisely explains that “if only” is similar to “wish.” Yes. Thank you to everyone who completed the homework task and the bonus challenge. These are the names of additional viewers who shared their ideas and their examples.

Thank you. Now, let’s turn our attention to two expressions that state a condition and ask the listener to consider the possible results. “What if” is basically used for two things: making suggestions and worrying. With “what if” we can make a suggestion that doesn’t sound forceful in any way because we phrase it as an unreal condition. What if you tried a new hairstyle? What if I dyed my hair red?

Do you think that would look good? Note the grammar. We use “what if” plus the simple past, and we’re referring to the present or possible future. We’re just imagining a condition, a possible situation. Hmm, what if? Do you know what a worrywart is? Besides a tongue twister. Try saying it three times fast.

Worry wart worry wart, worry wart. It’s difficult, isn’t it? A worry wart is an informal expression for a person who constantly worries or just worries too much. I admit that I sometimes can be a worry wart, but I try to control it. If I worry too much, I start to have thoughts like these: Do you ever have thoughts like those? Obviously, it’s not healthy to worry that much, so we should all try not to be worry warts. To express worries, we can use “What if” plus the simple present because we usually worry about the future. They’re real concerns for us.

But it’s also possible to worry about the past and present. For example: Now how about if we talk about the other expression? We use “how about if” + the simple present to make suggestions – real suggestions for the present and future. How about we take a break from grammar for a while? How about if I try live streaming more? The implied ending is: Is that okay? If I do this, is that okay with you?

You can use “how about if” in informal exchanges about scheduling or other proposals. How about if you write your own example and I comment? So as this is the last lesson on conditionals for a while, I’m only, giving you one practice task. You can write in the comments. Create your own examples with “what if” and “how about if.” I look forward to reading your ideas in the comments.