How to use conditional 2 in English - Deep Dive
2026-02-01 19 min
Description & Show Notes
What if you could sound more natural in English—without overthinking grammar? In this episode, we break down the second conditional, show you why “too many woulds” happen, and help you use if-sentences confidently in real conversations, negotiations, and everyday English.
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- Introduction and topic overview (0:00–0:58)
- Why the second conditional causes problems (0:59–2:35)
- Overusing “Would” and how It sounds to native Speakers (2:36–4:08)
- Why the past form is used in the If-clause (4:09–6:41)
- Training the structure and breaking old habits (7:17–8:23)
- Shared language learning struggles and empathy (8:24–9:20)
- Common second conditional phrases in real life (9:20–11:30)
- Contracted forms and final grammar insights (11:31–12:18)
- Practical memory tips and pronunciation challenges (12:18–13:16)
- Simplifying concepts: “Hypothetical” vs. “Unreal” (13:18–13:44)
- Second conditional in negotiation and “Testing the water” (13:48–15:21)
- Native Usage, dialects, and “Bending the rules” (15:21–15:45)
- Golden Nugget: “If I were” vs. “If I was” (15:50–17:13)
- Next episode preview: Understanding newspaper headlines (17:17–18:32)
- Closing remarks (18:33–19:20)
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Rebecca: https://rebeccadeacon.com
Birgit: https://birgitkasimirski.de
Was wäre, wenn Sie sich auf Englisch natürlicher ausdrücken könnten – ohne sich zu sehr mit der Grammatik zu beschäftigen? In dieser Folge erklären wir Ihnen die zweite Konditionalsform, zeigen Ihnen, warum es zu „zu vielen Woulds” kommt, und helfen Ihnen dabei, If-Sätze in echten Gesprächen, Verhandlungen und im alltäglichen Englisch sicher anzuwenden.
- Einführung und Themenübersicht (0:00–0:58)
- Warum die zweite Konditionalsform Probleme verursacht (0:59–2:35)
- Übermäßiger Gebrauch von „would” und wie es für Muttersprachler klingt (2:36–4:08)
- Warum die Vergangenheitsform im If-Satz verwendet wird (4:09–6:41)
- Die Struktur trainieren und alte Gewohnheiten ablegen (7:17–8:23)
- Gemeinsame Schwierigkeiten beim Sprachenlernen und Empathie (8:24–9:20)
- Häufige Sätze mit dem zweiten Konditional im Alltag (9:20–11:30)
- Verkürzte Formen und abschließende Einblicke in die Grammatik (11:31–12:18)
- Praktische Tipps zum Auswendiglernen und Herausforderungen bei der Aussprache (12:18–13:16)
- Vereinfachung von Konzepten: „Hypothetisch” vs. „Unwirklich” (13:18–13:44)
- Der zweite Konditional in Verhandlungen und „Die Lage sondieren” (13:48–15:21)
- Muttersprachlicher Gebrauch, Dialekte und „Die Regeln beugen” (15:21–15:45)
- Golden Nugget: „If I were“ vs. „If I was“ (15:50–17:13)
- Vorschau auf die nächste Folge: Zeitungsschlagzeilen verstehen (17:17–18:32)
- Schlussbemerkungen (18:33–19:20)
Transcript
(Transcribed by TurboScribe.ai. Go Unlimited to remove this message.) Hi, welcome to the 3 English Experts.
I'm Dave, I'm Rebecca, and I'm Birgit, and welcome to this episode.
3 English Experts is your English podcast to help you speak better English and create a positive and happy mindset for your English learning journey.
Hi everyone and welcome back to this episode.
Today we are going back to grammar.
We're making our grammar queen happy, Birgit smiling.
We are going to focus on conditional to, so this is an if clause.
Our conditionals episode is actually our most popular episode, so obviously people out there like to dive into the grammar, so we're happy to focus on that today.
So I will hand straight over to Birgit, who is going to explain a little bit how to form conditional to, typical problems, issues that people face with if to.
Hello everybody, thank you Rebecca.
Yeah, that's interesting that this is one of the most popular episodes.
Probably the thing that comes to my mind is that if clause is some sort of an angstema at school or something people felt like it was a lot of rules, it was difficult to remember, and it's more difficult to use when you talk.
And why have we picked out if clause to?
Because it does trouble people when they talk.
And I will explain in a second.
The thing is if you're not used to talking a lot of English, that's very common that this would come up incorrectly because it needs some training, and this is what this episode is meant to be for you as a quick 20 minutes listening, and you might be able to fix it quickly.
The if clause to is for hypothetical sentences, so just imagine something was different the way it is in reality.
One of my examples I sometimes use is if I won the lottery, which I don't even play, I might buy myself a ticket this week only to try, maybe give it a go, if I might buy myself a ticket.
And if I won a million, oh fantastic, I would be a millionaire.
The problem, the trouble people have is because the sentence, the German sentence goes, we have twice this würde Konjunktiv, and this is often or very often translated, and not only with beginners, but also with advanced learners.
Am I correct, Rebecca and Dave, do you see that?
Absolutely, it's the classic mistake, the would, putting too many woulds.
Putting too many woulds.
Can't see the woulds through the trees and all that.
Yeah, and the thing is, the problem people face in a business setting or an environment where they do talk, sometimes, but not very often, would you ever comment on that, if somebody said that incorrectly?
I'm using the if clause now.
No, they're shaking their head.
No, you're not going to sit there in a meeting and then say, oh, you used too many woulds.
But of course, as trainers, we would notice.
Native speakers, maybe not an English trainer, they would notice that something sounded foreign, but they probably wouldn't know what it was.
This is always the point.
It's a bit like if you're German and you're not a German trainer and you're not focused on German grammar, when someone says something wrong, they say der instead of die.
You know, das hat sich komisch an.
It sounds a bit weird, but you might not necessarily immediately notice what is the mistake.
Do you know what I mean?
Yeah, definitely.
And it's the same for most native speakers.
They just hear, okay, this is a foreign person and they said something slightly weird.
The communication, the message is probably not lost.
Exactly.
And this is what I always say, though.
I think it's not, because people say, they understand me and I say, yeah, of course they still understand you.
But as soon as these little mistakes start popping in, it makes it more difficult or anstrengend for the person to listen in the other language.
So they immediately start thinking, oh, this is all a little bit strange.
And then maybe the message does get lost because it's just that bit more difficult to listen to.
Does that make sense?
Yeah, sure.
Yeah.
And I think I can support the learners, our students as well, because it does sound very strange to put this past tense in there at the beginning.
So the if plus past tense.
Why the past tense?
It doesn't really make much sense.
And so I can really understand how people would think and use the would in both sides, because it also sounds easier for everybody rather than changing the verb into, as you said, the past, the one, the when, the one, the past tense.
Of course, it isn't.
I think this is also important, Birgit, I'm sure you were about to say this, so I'm not going to, but it's not the past tense.
I'm going to talk about this.
Yes.
Thank you, Dave.
Yeah.
And the other thing that's very interesting, that's why I asked the question to the natives, how does it sound?
Would you ever correct people?
Because, of course, that's a moment in a conversation for somebody not sure about being not sure about what he says in a different language.
Is it good enough?
So how does it feel for the what do they think?
Because one thing is that people might not fully understand you, the listener.
The other thing is that I know a lot of my learners feel they don't want to make mistakes.
And that's one of the things which is nice to be able to avoid making that, if I call it a mistake, because as Rebecca said correctly, the message will not get lost.
So don't worry about this.
Yes, it's the if.
So this is what we learned in school in Germany.
In England, I think it goes, this is if and would never could, which I like, but we didn't learn that.
We learned so if and would sollten nicht in der gleichen Satzzeile sein.
So you have to put if and the simple past tense.
Zwei to the second form of each verb could be irregular.
And then on the other part of the clause, you can use would or could or should.
And why does it feel so strange?
Of course, people say, yes, simple past.
What does it have to do with the past?
Nothing, of course.
But we have something similar.
And that's how I can explain it maybe to you.
That's our präteritum, which we use in writing more than in talking.
And that's the same thing.
Or that's past präteritum.
I guess it's you create this distance.
It's not the reality.
Does that make sense to you?
This is why the language takes to this feature.
Absolutely.
It's this moving one step away from what's actually happening.
It's like you said, I haven't even bought a lotto ticket.
If I won the lotto, you can still say even if you haven't bought a ticket, because it's not reality, I haven't even bought a ticket.
And even if I've bought a ticket, the chances of me winning are so small, minimum, that you would always say you don't say if I win the lottery, you wouldn't use first because it's then you're really convinced you're going to win, which would be a bit overoptimistic.
Yeah.
So yeah, it's this step away.
I love the using the ginga.
I think that's a really good way for German speakers to understand the point that that's actually a really good point.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And we never use this in speaking.
We all know that, of course, with our mother tongue, it's there and we can use it.
It's not a problem to understand what it means, but we don't actually use it.
And in English, it's just they stick or English sticks to that version much stricter.
But we have the option always to say, when I would do that, then something else would happen.
Of course, this is basically twice would and that doesn't work in English.
I think I want to repeat just to make people understand what's wrong.
So if I would go to church, that might sound and I remember that actually, I remember that sounded for a very long time.
That sounded okay in my mind.
Yeah.
And that's a problem.
But if I went or if I visited church and that's the correct part, yeah, you have to train that.
So please try to train if I did, if I won, if I had, if I chose, you can do that exercise with all the verb tenses.
And then on the other part, it's the word.
I have to just say, you've just given me a bit of a traumatic flashback.
Oh, sorry.
To my German university, German.
And I remember sitting with two of my friends and they're going about the preter, what was the conjunctive and the preterite and sitting there going, oh my goodness, what is this all about?
And this ginga, I think I remember that now that we were forming it with the word and she was going, oh, but you can also say ich ginga.
Oh, goodness me.
Sorry.
No, no grammatical traumatic flashback there.
That's just nice for listeners who struggle with English to see.
It's not only you.
Every, every language learner struggles.
We feel the pain.
We feel the pain.
I would say German is also not that easy, right?
It's.
It is tricky.
Plusquamperfekt, yeah.
Oh, plusquamperfekt, yes.
If I were you, Rebecca, I would not learn German now.
For example.
For example.
For example.
And that kind of leads us on to what I'd like to tell you a little bit about.
Some of these little phrases that are often used in English, which are formed with this first part of the conditional to, so this if and then the past tense form.
And we often use these actually for giving advice.
So if somebody asks you for what you would do, what would you do?
So the result bit, the second bit of the second conditional, the second part, the result bit, I always call it where you say the would and then the infinitive form.
What would you do?
And then the if bit is if you were in my place, if you were me, what would you do?
So it's a way of giving advice.
And I think they're also very powerful little phrases when you're having conversations.
If I were you, I would learn more English.
If I were you, I would go to the gym more often, especially here at the beginning of the year.
We often talk about going to the gym or a more colloquial way in this context.
Also giving advice.
If I were in your shoes, not only do you say if I were, you can also say if I were in your shoes.
There's a couple of other ones.
For example, it talks about doing the lottery tickets, but often people complain about, let's say, society or how the government runs or how the company runs that they work in or something.
And of course, then they want to say if I were the boss or if I were in charge, I'd want to do it this way or I would do it this way.
So again, this is another way where you're obviously not the boss, not the prime minister, the chancellor, whatever it might be.
You can't and you won't do it, but you're imagining the situation.
And that's another one.
And finally, Rebecca, get ready.
There is a very famous song by a lady called Cher, and she also uses a fantastic second conditional phrase.
Are you ready, Rebecca?
One, two, three.
If I could turn back time.
I would say if you're using could instead of would, so can, past form could.
Thanks for the explanation.
There you go.
So if I could turn back time, that is another fantastic second conditional.
What would you do?
If I could turn back time.
This is another point.
She says, I'd take back all the things that hurt you.
And this is the other point I think people forget.
Often the would gets reduced to I would, I'd.
Because she says, if I could find a way, I'd take back all the things that hurt you.
And you'd stay.
You would stay.
So the would gets contracted.
And I think that often gets lost.
Very interesting.
And that's very confusing.
It's good that you knew the lyrics, Rebecca.
I do.
It's one of my favourite karaoke hits.
I'm sure you should sing the whole song.
The karaoke.
I only knew the first bit.
My husband's cringing right now.
He's probably like that.
As soon as it comes on, I'm over at the bar.
There was a situation.
I think it came on.
I was over at the bar buying drinks.
And I was like reaching out to him across the bar.
I didn't know you were.
Oh, dear.
Yes.
And the other thing I remember what I found helpful when I tried to remember this correctly, as I said, it sounded OK.
And I was like uncertain.
Oh, what do I have to say?
One of my tips is trying it with the negative.
If I didn't have a job, if the Ukraine didn't fight against Russia, of course, very often you turn again to a war.
So it wasn't.
But try to fill it in.
Didn't because that makes it more obvious for the brain.
It's the past tense here.
And the other thing what I personally find difficult, most difficult about it, of course, too, is this hypothetical pronunciation.
Can you pronounce that correctly for me, please?
Hypothetic.
Hypo.
Not hypo.
Hypo.
Hypo.
Hypothetical.
Yeah.
Hypothesis.
Hypothesis.
That's tricky.
That's tricky.
I hate it.
Yeah.
Just say unreal.
Say unreal.
Unreal.
Unrealistic.
Easy.
It's unrealistic.
Yeah.
Work around.
If you can't pronounce it, work around.
Unreal.
It's unreal situation.
I make a fool out of me every time I say it.
No, no, no.
I try to say hypothetical.
Unreal.
Unreal.
The last point we were going to make is just so Dave was talking about giving advice.
It's often also used in things like negotiating.
For example, if we offered you, so offered, past tense, if we offered you a 10% discount, would you be willing to book or would you buy the product?
Or if we delivered by the end of January, would that change your opinion?
And people say, well, why is it conditional too?
Because isn't it realistic?
Does that mean you're not going to offer me a discount?
It is realistic.
It's just I'm testing the water.
So if we did that, would you maybe consider this?
And it's this sort of testing.
Is the person even interested?
And they go, no, that's absolutely out of the question.
Okay, forget about it.
But they might go, yeah, maybe we would do that.
One last point I have to say, just popping into my head right now.
The Irish are obsessed with using wood.
So wood is used so often here in Ireland.
And I always joke and say, why is everything hypothetical?
You say, oh, I saw Mrs. La La La, my neighbour last week.
And they will say, oh, would she be 80 now?
Would she be 80?
She is 80.
She would be.
She's still alive and she's 80.
They have this tendency to use the wood because it's all a little bit slightly distanced and a little bit like, I'm not really sure.
So I'll use the wood form.
It's kind of funny.
But you do hear that in Irish.
If you're into accents, dialects, Irish, English, if you watch anything with the Irish English on Netflix, you will listen out for the wood because they love using wood.
And I think there are a lot of other natives that also get it wrong with the second condition as well.
Absolutely.
And also various accents from various areas.
Don't say it's wrong.
You see, my husband gets very annoyed now.
I can say it's not wrong.
It's just different.
Yeah.
Bending the rules.
Very thin ice.
OK, well, that brings us nicely to our golden nugget.
The Golden Nugget.
Our golden nugget today is still on the topic of conditional two.
And as Dave said, there are these times when even natives mix things up.
So the question is, is it really a mistake or is it just colloquial?
So the classic one is if I were and if I was, you will hear a lot of people say if I was you, if I was you, if I was the king of England, I would do this.
If I was the CEO.
Officially, that is not grammatically correct.
So it should really be if I were you, if I were the CEO, if I were the king of England.
However, I do it.
I think Dave does it as well.
I'm quite sure.
And a lot of native speakers do this.
It's kind of difficult.
It's slang.
It's colloquial.
Is it wrong in written form?
I would say, yes, it's definitely wrong.
I would definitely avoid doing it in written form.
You will hear people say it.
So I can't sit here and say it's wrong to say that because it's not.
But just if you hear that and you're confused and you think, well, is it was or is it were?
Officially, it's were if I were you.
We were talking before about songs.
So there's a famous Beyonce song.
If I were a boy, I would switch off my phone, for example.
So I would, again, she's contracting the I in the wood.
I'd switch off my phone.
If I were a boy, not if I was a boy.
So generally, that is the correct form.
But again, people do both.
Yeah, absolutely.
So that's our golden nugget.
Thank you, Rebecca.
And for next time, we thought looking into the newspapers would be a good topic for us to work with you.
And in particular, the headlines.
If you ever read the newspapers in English, firstly, you'll be surprised by some of the vocab, I'm sure.
They're often very short items of vocab because the headline is there to be short and also then to catch your eye.
So a lot of the words are a lot shorter and you don't necessarily know what they mean because the real word, the normal word that we use in English is maybe completely different or a longer form of it.
Firstly, there's the vocabulary.
And secondly, actually, there's quite a lot of grammar things to be aware of when you're reading the newspapers because sometimes the grammar is or it is written in a way that sounds confusing in the normal grammar context.
So next time, we're going to shed some light on firstly, some of the vocab that you might need when you're reading the newspaper headlines.
And secondly, some of the little grammar things to be aware of when you're reading your news next week.
Oh, I love that.
As a journalist.
There you go.
And we're making Birgit happy with some journalistic stuff and some grammar.
Oh, wonderful.
Two for the price of one.
Perfect match.
Okay, bye for now.
See you next time.
Thanks for listening.
Bye bye.
Bye.
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