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When To Use The Second Conditional

The Second Conditional is used to express consequences of unrealistic actions or situations in the present or future, typically with very low or no probability. It is structured as 'If + past simple, would/wouldn’t + verb' and can also use 'could' in some cases. An important note is that the verb 'to be' should always be 'were' for subjects like I, he, she, and it, despite informal usage of 'was' by some speakers.

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19 views2 pages

When To Use The Second Conditional

The Second Conditional is used to express consequences of unrealistic actions or situations in the present or future, typically with very low or no probability. It is structured as 'If + past simple, would/wouldn’t + verb' and can also use 'could' in some cases. An important note is that the verb 'to be' should always be 'were' for subjects like I, he, she, and it, despite informal usage of 'was' by some speakers.

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kalayumedhin211
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The Second Conditional

Mar 24, 2019

As we’ve seen in the previous articles about the Zero Conditional and the First
Conditional, there are four types of conditional sentence in English. For many students, the
second type is the most challenging and tricky to learn to use. Read on to find out when and
how we use it, then practice with a fun quiz.

When to use the second conditional

The second conditional is used to express the consequence of an unrealistic action or situation in
the present or future. The situation can be:

 Very improbable (1-5% probability)


 Completely unrealistic (with a 0% probability)

For example,

If I won the lottery, I would travel around the world.

There is a very low probability (1% chance) that the first part of this sentence (winning the
lottery’) will happen. But if it happens, the second part is 100% certain.

If I had more free time, I would play more sport.

I don’t have a lot of free time (0%), but in that case, the second part is 100% certain.

How do we create the Second Conditional?

To make a sentence in the second conditional, we use,

If + past simple, would/wouldn’t + verb.

If I lived in a big city, I would go out more often.

If I lived in a big city, I wouldn’t need a car.

As with all conditionals, you can also invert this structure:

Would + verb if + past simple.

I’d go out more often if I lived in a big city.

I wouldn’t need a car if I lived in a big city.


As an alternative to would, we can complete the second part of

a second conditional sentence with could. For example,

If we lived in the city we could use the public transport.

An exception about the verb ‘to be’

When we use the verb ‘to be’ in the second conditional, the past form is always were and not
was for the subjects I, he, she and it. For example,

If I were rich, I’d spend all my time travelling.

If he were my boss, I’d look for another job.

If it weren’t so cold, we could go for a walk.

Nowadays you can often hear young native speakers use was instead of were, especially in an
informal context. But the correct form is were.

Understanding the second conditional

It can be tricky to understand when it’s right to use the second conditional instead of the first. I
think it helps to remember that we normally use the second conditional when we talk about
imaginary situations, dreaming about possible situations and how we would act consequently.
For example,

If we were rich, we could buy a big house near the sea.

What would you do if your company offered you a promotion in another country?

He wouldn’t come to the party even if we invited him.

Here are some other examples of the second conditional:

If she studied harder she’d pass her exams easily.

What would you do if you won a lot of money?

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