Second conditional

"El lenguaje es el vestido de los pensamientos (Samuel Johnson)

Hi! I'm Samira Medellin. Today we're going to talk about the second conditional. I hope you like it.

Second conditional

• Uses the past simple after if, then "would" and then infinitive.

• if + past simple, ...would + infinitive
• We can use the second conditional to:

1. Talk about things in the future that are probably not going to be true. Maybe I'm imagining some dream, for example:

- If I won the competition, I would celebrate with my family.

-She would pass the exam, if she ever studied.

1. To talk about something in the present which is impossible, because it's not true. Let's look some examples:

-If I lived in your country, I would visit you (I don't live in her/his country, so for me it's impossible visit her/his).

-If I studied Astronomy, I would work at NASA.

How is this different from the first conditional?

This kind of conditional sentence is different from the first conditional because this is a lot more unlikely.

For example (second conditional): If I had enough money I would buy a house with twenty bedrooms and a swimming pool (I'm probably not going to have this much money, it's just a dream, not very real)

But (first conditional): If I have enough money, I'll buy some new shoes (It's much more likely that I'll have enough money to buy some shoes).

Bibliographic references: http://www.perfect-english-grammar.com/second-conditional.html

Watch this video to understand more the subject.