The Third Conditional

Este enlace para que podáis descargar audios y textos con la explicación del tercer condicional:

http://blogsaverroes.juntadeandalucia.es/ingles3eoi/category/third-conditional/

Este enlace con una explicación con audio

http://www.shertonenglish.com/resources/es/conditionals/type3.php

Este enlace con un montón de ejercicios

http://www.agendaweb.org/verbs/conditional-third-exercises.html

The Third Conditional

We make the third conditional by using the past perfect after 'if' and then 'would have' and the past participle in the second part of the sentence:

·  if + past perfect, ...would + have + past participle

It talks about the past. It's used to describe a situation that didn't happen, and to imagine the result of this situation.

·  If she had studied, she would have passed the exam (but, really we know she didn't study and so she didn't pass)

·  If I hadn't eaten so much, I wouldn't have felt sick (but I did eat a lot, and so I did feel sick).

·  If we had taken a taxi, we wouldn't have missed the plane

·  She wouldn't have been tired if she had gone to bed earlier

·  She would have become a teacher if she had gone to university

·  He would have been on time for the interview if he had left the house at nine

Third Conditional

for no possibility

If I had won the lottery, I would have bought a car.

The first conditional and second conditionals talk about the future. With the third conditional we talk about the past. We talk about a condition in the past that did not happen. That is why there is no possibility for this condition. The third conditional is also like a dream, but with no possibility of the dream coming true.

Last week you bought a lottery ticket. But you did not win. :-(

Notice that we are thinking about an impossible past condition. You did not win the lottery. So the condition was not true, and that particular condition can never be true because it is finished. We use the Past Perfecttense to talk about the impossible past condition. We use would have + past participle to talk about the impossible past result. The important thing about the third conditional is that both the condition and result are impossible now.

Look at these example senteces:

Sometimes, we use should have, could have, might have instead of would have, for example: If you had bought a lottery ticket, you might have won.