The third conditional.  Not for the faint hearted!

In this lesson, I am going to do a little workshop with you to practice making third conditional sentences. Are you up for it?

What is the third conditional?

The third conditional is an unreal situation in the past.
It didn’t happen.  It’s like a parallel universe.  If one event hadn’t happened in the past, what do I think the result would have been? We need to use our imagination here. And yes, people do use this often in conversation to talk about regrets or just to imagine how their lives might have been different.

How do we make the third conditional?

If + past perfect, + would / could / might (not)+ present perfect

We have an if clause that uses the past perfect and then we use would, could or might with the present perfect for the possibility clause. The clauses are separated by a comma. The positions can be swapped around, the if clause can go second, but in that case you don’t need to put a comma in between them.

* Remember *
would have = quite certain
probably would have = most likely but not certain
could have = possibility and ability
might have = possibility

Ok, now that we know how to make the third conditional, let’s practise using it!

Make sure you have some paper and a pen ready so you can write down your answers and then share them with us at the end.  And don’t forget to practice speaking the sentences out – repeat until they come easily.