Welcome back to my channel.

If you're new here, I'm Claire, and I help you improve your English with quick, easy to understand video lessons.

This is my first video in a little while because I was away on vacation.

I was in San Francisco, among other places, but now I'm back and ready to jump into more weekly English lessons.

Today, we're diving into something super important, but often very difficult for English learners, and that is the conditionals.

By the end of this video, you'll know exactly when to use each type of conditional and sound much more competent speaking and writing in English.

So let's go.

English made easy with Claire.

So what are conditionals?

In English, conditionals are sentences with two parts.

First, you have the if clause and a result clause.

The result clause tells us what happens or what could happen depending on the conditions.

There are four main types of conditionals, and each one is used for very different situations.

Let's break them down one by one.

The first is the zero conditional.

This is used for things that are always true, like facts or general truths.

For example, if you heat water to 100 degrees, it boils.

Think of it like a scientific fact.

If this happens, that always happens.

It's straightforward because both clauses are in the simple present tense, and it's useful to talk about facts or rules, things that are always true.

Next up, the first conditional.

We use this to talk about real possible future situations, something that could happen if a certain condition is met.

For example, if it rains tomorrow, we will stay home.

Here, you're talking about the future.

If the condition, rain, happens, the result, staying home, will follow.

We use the first conditional to talk about plans or predictions.

The structure is using the simple present tense in the if clause and the simple future tense in the result clause.

The use of the future tense in the result clause can help you remember that this is used to talk about possible future events.

Now, let's look at the second conditional.

This one is used for hypothetical or unreal situations.

It's not about real life, but rather what could happen in an imaginary world.

For example, if I had a lot of money, I would travel the world.

This doesn't mean that you have a lot of money right now, but you're imagining what you'd do if you did.

It starts to get tricky now here with the use of the past tense and this would plus infinitive, because this doesn't have anything to do with the Finally, we have the third conditional.

This one is used for past situations that didn't happen.

We often use this to talk about regrets or things we wish we'd done differently.

For example, if I had woken up earlier, I would have caught the bus.

This means you didn't wake up early enough and as a result, you did not catch the bus.

These are used for situations that never happened and will never happen, but you're thinking about what if or if only.

It's used to express regret or the wish to have done something differently in the past, but you'll never get the chance again, so it's never actually going to happen.

Before we wrap up today's lesson, here's something important to remember about conditionals.

You can put the if at the beginning or the middle of a sentence when using conditionals.

For example, take our previous sentence.

If I had woken up earlier, I would have caught the bus, but you could also say, I would have caught the bus if I had woken up earlier.

The meaning doesn't change.

Just keep in mind, if you use the if at the beginning of the sentence, that clause needs to be followed by a comma.

If you have if in the middle of the sentence, you don't need a comma.

And there you Knowing when and how to use them is really important for your English learning.

If you want to practice these more, I have a free worksheet for you linked in the description below.

You can find more worksheets and exclusive video lessons just like this one within my online community, English Made Easy, and the link to join that is also in the description of this video.

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I'll see you then.

Bye, guys.