Conditionals

Mother: “Greg, I want to make a cake this afternoon. Will you help me?” Greg: “If I have time, I will help you.”
Mother: “Greg, I am going to make the cake now. Can you help me?” Greg: “If I had time, I’d help you. But I have to do my homework.”
Mother: “Now I’ve made the cake myself. Why didn’t you help me?” Greg: “If I’d had time, I would have helped you. But I had to do my homework.”

                             Condicional

I would go. Yo iría.

We would study. Estudiaríamos.

Contracted Form:

I would	I'd [aid]
You would	You'd [iud]
He would	He'd [hid]
She would	She'd [shid]
It would	It'd [Itd]
We would	We'd
They would	They'd

We’d go to Paris. Iríamos a Paris.

Conditional Cero

Este condicional refiere a una situación que es siempre verdadera (verdades universales):

• If you freeze water, it turns into ice.
  Si congelas el agua, se convierte en hielo.
• If I work too much, I get tired.
  Si trabajo demasiado, me canso.
• If I have time, I go to the movies.
  Si tengo tiempo, voy al cine.
• If she eats fish, she gets an allergy.
  Si ella come pescado, le da alergia.
• If they come here, they always bring a present.
  Si ellos vienen aquí, siempre traen un regalo.
• If she doesn't know the answer, she keeps silent.
  Si ella no sabe la respuesta, se mantiene en silencio.
• If we don't go out on Saturdays, we rent a video and stay home.
  Si no salimos los sábados, alquilamos un video y nos quedamos en casa.

Primer Condicional

Se emplea cuando una situación es real o posible. Se forma con if + simple present + simple future.

If + Present tense

will / can / may / must + verb

·  If it rains today, I'll stay at home.
Si llueve hoy, me quedaré en casa.

·  If he is busy now, I will come back tomorrow.
Si está ocupado ahora, regresaré mañana.

·  If I have time, I'll visit my parents this afternoon.
Si tengo tiempo, visitaré a mis padres esta tarde.

·  If it is warm tomorrow, we'll go to the beach.
Si está caluroso mañana, iremos a la playa.

·  If it is cold, you must wear warm clothes.
Si está frío, debes usar ropa abrigada.

·  If he doesn't do his homework, he can not go to the party.
Si él no hace su tarea, no puede ir a la fiesta.

·  If she doesn't call you, you can call her.
Si ella no te llama, tú puedes llamarla.

·  If they don't invite you, you must not go.
Si ellos no te invitan, no debes ir.

·  If we don't hurry, we'll miss our bus.
Si no nos apuramos, perderemos nuestro autobus.

·  If you pay now, you'll get a discount.
Si pagas ahora, obtendrás un descuento.

·  If they don't want to go out, they can stay home.
Si no quieren salir, se pueden quedar en casa.

·  If you drink too much, you'll get drunk.
Si bebes demasiado, te emborracharás.

·  If you feel sick, you must stay in bed.
Si te sientes enfermo, debes quedarte en cama.

·  If they don't come here, we'll have to go there.
Si ellos no vienen aquí, tendremos que ir allí.

Segundo Condicional

Refiere a una situación hipotética y se forma según la estructura if + simple past + simple condicional.

If + Past Simple

would / could / might + verb

·  If I won the lottery, I would travel around the world.
Si ganara la lotería, viajaría por todo el mundo.

·  If I were in Brazil, I would go to Rio de Janeiro.
Si yo estuviese en Brasil, iría a Río de Janeiro.

·  If I were you, I would buy that car.
Si yo fuese tú, compraría ese auto.

·  If he were in my place, he wouldn't do this.
Si él estuviese en mi lugar, no haría esto.

·  If I had more money, I would buy a nice apartment.
Si yo tuviese más dinero, me compraría un lindo apartamento.

·  If she had more time, she would travel more often.
Si ella tuviera más tiempo, viajaría más a menudo.

·  If it were not raining, we could go out.
Si no estuviese lloviendo, podríamos salir.

·  If they won the lottery, they wouldn't work any more.
Si ellos ganaran la lotería, no trabajarían más.

·  If I saw her, I would ask her out.
Si la viera, la invitaría a salir.

·  If you went to Brazil, you wouldn't want to come back.
Si fueras a Brazil, no querrías regresar.

·  If they spoke Spanish, we would understand them.
Si ellos hablasen español, los entenderíamos.

·  If he didn't live by the river, he couldn't go fishing.
Si el no viviera cerca del río, no podría ir a pescar.

·  If I didn't want to go, I would tell you.
Si no quisiera ir, te lo diría.

·  If they worked for that company, they might have better salaries.
Si ellos trabajaran para esa compañía, podrían tener mejores sueldos.

·  If she wrote a book, it would be a best-seller.
Si ella escribiese un libro, sería un best-seller.

Third Condicional

Third Conditional, también -Type III- Refiere a una situación hipotética del pasado y se forma según la estructura : if + past perfect + conditional perfect.

If + Past Perfect tense

would/could/might + have + past participle

Pluscuamperfecto  +  Condicional perfecto

·  If I had won the lottery, I would have traveled around the world.
Si yo hubiera ganado la lotería, habría viajado por todo el mundo.

·  If I had seen him, I would have told him about you.
Si lo hubiese visto, le habría contado acerca de ti.

·  If I had known the answer, I would have raised my hand.
Si hubiese sabido la respuesta, habría levantado mi mano.

·  If she had come on Saturday, I would have seen her.
Si ella hubiese venido el sábado, la habría visto.

·  If they had left earlier, they would have arrived on time.
Si ellos hubiesen salido más temprano, habrían llegado a tiempo.

·  If we had studied harder, we might have passed the test.
Si hubiésemos estudiado más duro, podríamos haber aprobado la prueba.

·  If you had gone to Brazil, you would have had lots of fun.
Si tu hubieses ido a Brasil, habrías tenido mucha diversión.

·  If I hadn't been so busy, I could have helped you.
Si no hubiese estado tan ocupado, te podría haber ayudado.

·  If you had phoned me, I would have known you were here.
Si tu me hubieses telefoneado, habría sabido que estabas aquí.

·  If they had invited us, we would have accepted at once.
Si ellos nos hubiesen invitado, habríamos aceptado de inmediato.

·  If she had explained me the problem, I would have understood it.
Si ella me hubiese explicado el problema, lo habría entendido.

·  If I hadn't forgotten his number, I would have phoned him.
Si no hubiese olvidado su número, lo habría llamado.

·  If it hadn't rained, we would have gone fishing.
Si no hubiese llovido, habríamos ido a pescar.

·  If my sister had been here, she would have enjoyed this.
Si mi hermana hubiese estado aquí, habría disfrutado esto.

·  If they hadn't drunk so much last night, they wouldn't have felt sick today.
Si no hubiesen tomado tanto anoche, no se habrían sentido enfermos hoy.

·  If he had worked more, he could have saved more money.
Si él hubiese trabajado más, podría haber ahorrado más dinero.

Como en español en inglés se puede mezclar las condicionales. Por ejemplo:
·  If I had studied more before, I wouldn’t need to study now.

Si hubiera estudiado más antes, no necesitaría estudiar ahora.

De + infinitivo compuesto + condicional compuesto:
• De haber hecho calor, habría ido a la playa: If it had been hot, I would have gone to the beach
• De no haber tenido mucho trabajo, habríamos ido al cine: If we hadn´t had much work, we would have gone to the cinema

Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut

A beautiful part from Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse-Five (Matadero 5).

He came slightly unstuck in time, saw the late movie backwards, then forwards again. It was a movie about American bombers in the Second World War and the gallant men who flew them. Seen backwards by Billy, the story went like this:

American planes, full of holes and wounded men and corpses took off backwards from an airfield in England. Over France, a few German fighter planes flew at them backwards, sucked bullets and shell fragments from some of the planes and crewmen. They did the same for wrecked American bombers on the ground, and those planes flew up backwards to join the formation.

The formation flew backwards over a German city that was in flames. The bombers opened their bomb bay doors, exerted a miraculous magnetism which shrunk the fires, gathered them into cylindrical steel containers, and lifted the containers into the bellies of the planes. The containers were stored neatly in racks. The Germans below had miraculous devices of their own, which were long steel tubes. They used them to suck more fragments from the crewmen and planes. But there were still a few wounded Americans, though, and some of the bombers were in bad repair. Over France, though, German fighters came up again, made everything and everybody as good as new.

When the bombers got back to their base, the steel cylinders were taken from the racks and shipped back to the United States of America, where factories were operating night and day, dismantling the cylinders, separating the dangerous contents into minerals. Touchingly, it was mainly women who did this work. The minerals were then shipped to specialists in remote areas. It was their business to put them into the ground, to hide them cleverly, so they would never hurt anybody ever again.

The American fliers turned in their uniforms, became high school kids. And Hitler turned into a baby, Billy Pilgrim supposed. That wasn’t in the movie. Billy was extrapolating.

Entonces, tras haberse aislado ligeramente del tiempo, vio la última película, primero al revés, de fin a principio, y luego otra vez en sentido normal. Era una película sobre la actuación de los bombarderos americanos durante la Segunda Guerra Mundial y sobre los valientes hombres que los tripulaban. Vista hacia atrás la historia era así:

  Aviones americanos llenos de agujeros, de hombres heridos y de cadáveres, despegaban de espaldas en un aeródromo de Inglaterra. Al sobrevolar Francia se encontraban con aviones alemanes de combate que volaban hacia atrás, aspirando balas y trozos de metralla de algunos aviones y dotaciones. Lo mismo se repitió con algunos aviones americanos destrozados en tierra, que alzaron el vuelo hacia atrás y se unieron a la formación.

La formación volaba de espaldas hacia una ciudad alemana que era presa de las llamas. Cuando llegaron, los bombarderos abrieron sus portillones y merced a un milagroso magnetismo redujeron el fuego, concentrándolo en unos cilindros de acero que aspiraron hasta hacerlos entrar en sus entrañas. Los containers fueron almacenados con todo cuidado en hileras. Pero allí abajo, los alemanes también tenían sus propios inventos milagrosos, consistentes en largos tubos de acero que utilizaron para succionar más balas y trozos de metralla de los aviones y de sus tripulantes. Pero todavía quedaban algunos heridos americanos, y algunos de los aviones estaban en mal estado. A pesar de ello, al sobrevolar Francia aparecieron nuevos aviones alemanes que solucionaron el conflicto. Y todo el mundo estuvo de nuevo sano y salvo.

  Cuando los bombarderos volvieron a sus bases, los cilindros de acero fueron sacados de sus estuches y devueltos en barcos a los Estados Unidos de América. Allí las fábricas funcionaban de día y de noche extrayendo el peligroso contenido de los recipientes. Lo conmovedor de la escena era que el trabajo lo realizaban, en su mayor parte, mujeres. Los minerales peligrosos eran enviados a especialistas que se encontraban en regiones lejanas. Su tarea consistía en enterrarlos y esconderlos bien para que así no volvieran a hacer daño a nadie.

  Los pilotos americanos mudaron sus uniformes para convertirse en muchachos que asistían a las escuelas superiores. Y Hitler se transformó en niño, según dedujo Billy Pilgrim. En la película no estaba. Porque Billy extrapolaba.