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Anonymous Posted 18 years ago
Grammar

third conditional

0Hi,02br
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00I think a common thinking is that a third conditional indicates what might have happened when a certain condition had happened or not had happend.02br
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00But I found out a third conditional also possibly can say about things that did happen but that might not have happened. This argument for present-time relevancy is difficult for me to accept since what I learned is that a third conditional mostly (all??) shows a past condition and a past result 02br
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00If I hadn't studied hard last night until mid-night, I would surely have failed the exam.02br
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00I think it says if he didnt' study hard last night, he would have failed but he didn't fail. -- not all past condition and past result but seems to tell what has happened at the present time. 0-
  

Top answer

12blockquote 10All past and contrary to fact. 0-

— Mister Micawber

  • 12blockquote 10All past and contrary to fact.
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5 Answers
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0 .01blockquote
00If I hadn't studied hard last night until mid-night, I would surely have failed the exam.12blockquote
10All past and contrary to fact. In fact, he 01u00did study02u00 hard last night and he 01u00did not fail02u00 the exam.0-
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0I don't think you should memorize what the 3rd conditional should do (educated native speakers don't know that), but what are correct conditionals in general, get the 01b00feel 02b00of it. 02br
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00Instead of using:02br
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00which isn't bad, you should use:02br
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00which is more clear in ter
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0Thank you, Mr. M and Marius. Can anyone shed some light on what Roger Woodham is saying here to a question about a third conditional in BBC LEARNING ENGLISH?02br
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00Now, Elena, as well as talking about things that didn't happen, we also use the third conditional to talk about things that did happen but that might not have happened. In other words, we use it
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1i00 I received some really excellent training for this job. Had I not been trained in this way, I wouldn't have survived in the job for very long.02i01b00 [He survived just because he had been trained that way ...02b02br
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01i00When my car broke down, I had to run very fast all the way to the station. If
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0Mr. Woodham is simply saying that the presence of a negation in the if-clause does not change the basic idea behind the third conditional, namely, that it contains counterfactual statements -- statements that are the "opposite" of what actually happened. 02br
01i00If I had seen the approaching car, I would not have crashed into it.02i02br
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