The second conditional
Nella newsletter del 18/12/2014 si dice che Casilda Grigg usa una costruzione molto simile al second conditional. Perché “molto simile” e non un second conditional vero e proprio? Grazie. Francesco
Our apologies for not having explained ourselves more clearly. Casilda Grigg’s statement is identical (in purely grammatical terms) to the second conditional. It’s just that the second conditional tends to be taught with examples that put the “if” part first, such as:
First conditional: If it rains, I will be sad.
Second conditional: If it rained, I would be sad.
Third conditional: If it had rained, I would have been sad.
To make things clearer, let’s put Casilda Grigg’s two statements in all three conditional forms:
First: If they have a look, I will love it/If people log on, I will be delighted.
Second: If they had a look, I’d love it/If people logged on, I’d be delighted.
Third: If they’d had a look, I would (I’d) have loved it/If people had logged on, I would (I’d) have been delighted.
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