My English Corner for 4th ESO: Third Conditional: no possibility or past unreal

The first conditional and second conditionals talk about the future. With the third conditional we talk about the past. We talk about a condition in the past that did not happen. That is why there is no possibility for this condition. The third conditional is also like a dream, but with no possibility of the dream coming true.

Last week you bought a lottery ticket. But you did not win.

	Condition	Result
	Past Perfect	WOULD HAVE + Past Participle
If	I had won the lottery	I would have bought a car.

Notice that we are thinking about an impossible past condition. You did not win the lottery. So the condition was not true, and that particular condition can never be true because it is finished. We use the past perfect tense to talk about the impossible past condition. We use WOULD HAVE + past participle to talk about the impossible past result. The important thing about the third conditional is that both the condition and result are impossible now.

Sometimes, we use should have, could have, might have instead of would have, for example: If you had bought a lottery ticket, you might have won.

Look at some more examples in the tables below:

IF	Condition	Result
	past perfect	WOULD HAVE + past participle
If	I had seen Mary	I would have told her.
If	Tara had been free yesterday	I would have invited her.
If	they had not passed their exam	their teacher would have been sad.
If	it had rained yesterday	would you have stayed at home?
If	it had rained yesterday	what would you have done?

Result	IF	Condition
WOULD HAVE + past participle		past perfect
I would have told Mary	if	I had seen her.
I would have invited Tara	if	she had been free yesterday.
Their teacher would have been sad	if	they had not passed their exam.
Would you have stayed at home	if	it had rained yesterday?
What would you have done	if	it had rained yesterday?

Using the 3rd conditional

to express regrets

Note: Since the 3rd conditional deals with situations that could have but didn’t happen in the past, it is often used to talk about regrets or things we wish had happened differently. For Example:

If I had studied harder, I would have passed my exam.

[condition] [result]

Here, the speaker could have studied harder and the result could have been passing his exam, but in reality, they didn’t study so much and they didn’t pass. It is too late for this condition to become true.

Using “- ‘d” for “would” and “had”

in the 3rd conditional

Note: In English, we often abbreviate words especially when speaking casually. Both the words “would” and “had” can be abbreviated to “- ‘d” ( apostrophe + “d” ). This can be confusing when it occurs in the 3rd conditional which uses both words in the same sentence. To help you decide which word “- ‘d” is referring to, remember that:

“would” never appears with “if” in the condition part of the sentence. If you see “- ‘d” after “if” it must be the abbreviation of “had”.
“Had” can never be before “have”. So if you see “- ‘d” before “have” then it must be the abbreviation of “would”.

For example:

(I had) (I would)

If I’d known it was your birthday, I’d have bought you a present.

[condition] [result]

Using other modals instead of “would” in the 3rd conditional

Note: It is possible to use other modals such as “could,” “might,” and “should” in place of “would” in the 3rd conditional as well. Changing the modal changes the degree of certainty, with “might” being not very sure, “could” being about 50/50 and “should” being very sure. For example:

Using the continuous form in the 3rd conditional

Note: The continuous form can also be used in the 3rd conditional to talk about unfinished or continuous actions /states that would have resulted in the past, from possible past conditions that didn’t actually happen. The structure is the same in the condition part with “If” followed by the past perfect, while the result part takes “would” followed by the present perfect continuous form:

[If + past perfect tense] , + [would + have been verb-ing]

[condition] [result]

[would + have been verb-ing] (no comma) + [If + past perfect tense]

[result] [condition]

For example: