Cambridge Grammar of English Hardback with cd-rom a comprehensive Guide

REAL CONDITIONALS

450

It can also be helpful to describe conditional clauses by the degree to which they

refer to real or unreal situations. Real situations are things that are true, have

happened, generally happen or are likely to happen. Unreal situations are things

that are untrue or are imagined, have not happened and are only remotely likely

to happen. Unreal situations are the basis of the second and third conditionals 

(

Û

449 above

).

In conditional clauses which refer to real situations, tenses are normally used in

the same way as in other kinds of sentence. Present tenses are used to talk about

present and future events as well as about general truths and facts, and past tenses

are used to talk about past events:

If you want to learn the guitar, you really need to practise for at least a couple

of hours a day.

(for any person who does in fact want to learn)

If I criticised her unfairly, then I always apologised.

(it did sometimes happen that I criticised her, and I did apologise)

A wide variety of patterns occur with real conditionals. Some examples of

common patterns are given here:

● present simple if-clause and present simple main clause:

If steel is exposed to air and water, it resists rust for a considerable length of 

time.

If I feel like some exercise, I take the dog for a walk.

● be going to if-clause and be going to main clause:

If you’re going to buy a house, then you’re going to need a lot of money.

● present simple if-clause and modal verb in main clause:

If you have toothache as bad as that, you must go to a dentist today.

If that’s on the disk, we should have it on our system.

● present simple if-clause and present progressive main clause:

If they think I’m going to retire quietly, then they’re making a big mistake.

They 

are breaking the law if they give you that information.

● present progressive if-clause and present progressive main clause:

If you’re getting backache all the time, then you’re not sitting properly.

● present progressive if-clause and present simple main clause:

If you’re suffering from hay-fever, you need one of these sprays.

● past simple if-clause and past simple main clause:

If I missed the last train, I just stayed over with friends.

(if here is synonymous with when)