Zero And First Conditional

Video Transcript
Section 1
Hey I'm Emma from mmmEnglish! Welcome to a fascinating, interesting, grammar lesson. Another one in our series about conditional sentences.

If you're learning English, you will definitely find this lesson helpful.

This type of grammar lesson might sound serious but learning to use conditionals effectively is going to help you to express yourself clearly and be really creative with English.

Conditionals are really common, native speakers use them all the time so if you start paying attention, you are definitely going to notice this sentence structure as you're reading and even as you're listening too, you'll hear it more.

In this video, we're going to focus on the zero conditional and the first conditional and we'll talk about how they're different but importantly when you should use one or the other because that's a little confusing.

If you enjoy my lessons, make sure you subscribe to the channel and if you like this lesson in particular, give it a like and share it with your friends. It all helps me to create more and interesting content for you.

So let's get into this lesson!

So I'm going to assume that you know most of the basics about conditional sentences.

If you study grammar, it gets easier.
If you practise every day, you will improve.
If I lived in an English-speaking country, I would be fluent.
If I had known how useful English was for my career, I would have paid more attention to it at school.
So each of these sentences has an if clause and a main clause but there are some differences between them especially with verb tenses and time references.

And all of this changes the meaning. One of them is a fact. Another is about the present but it's an unreal present. Another is about an imaginary past.

Today we're going to focus on these two. The zero and the first conditional.


ZERO CONDITIONAL
The zero conditional is also called the factual or the real conditional because we use it to talk about truths and facts. Things that are real in the world.

We also use it to talk about habits and rules and to give instructions that are the result of something else happening first.

So in other words, if this happens then this is the result always okay? It's a fact. It's the truth. It's just how it is. It's what happens.

Let's take a closer look at what it looks like because it's really simple.

We use the present simple in both clauses. Now why does it say ‘if' or ‘when' can be used in the if clause? It's a good question.

In the zero conditional, you can use either ‘if' or ‘when' in the if clause and the meaning with either word is pretty similar.

But we use ‘if' when there is a chance that the action will happen but it might not happen as well okay? If it does happen then we know exactly what the result will be.

If I workout, I feel healthier.
So I workout and the result is pretty obvious. When I do workout, I feel healthier, I feel better about myself. It's true.

But that doesn't mean that I do it all the time right? I don't always feel healthy especially if I don't workout.

We use ‘when' when we know for sure that that action is going to happen. We might not know exactly when it's going to happen but we know that it will okay.

When I workout, I feel healthier.
So I've removed the possibility that it's not going to happen. There's no question about it. I will workout.

The specific time doesn't matter, we just know that it's going to happen in the future so it's a subtle difference, very, very subtle.

And the same difference actually applies in the first conditional. We can use ‘if' or ‘when' as well in the first conditional.