4. If I finished early, I would go with you
SECOND CONDITIONAL
The second conditional is like the first conditional. We are still thinking about the future. We are thinking about a particular condition in the future, and the result of this condition. But there is not a real possibility that this condition will happen.
| IF | condition | result |
| past simple | WOULD + base verb | |
| If | I won the lottery | I would buy a car. |
Notice that we are thinking about a future condition. We use the past simple tense to talk about the future condition. We use WOULD + base verb to talk about the future result. The important thing about the second conditional is that there is an unreal possibility that the condition will happen.
Reading activity
After visiting the Hoa Lo prison and having lunch in a traditional Vietnamese restaurant (noodles with chicken and papaya fruit juice), Paco returns to the hotel at about three p.m. The morning receptionist is still there and as soon as he enters the lobby, she gives Paco a note.
By Avlxyz. Creative Commons.
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The note says: 'Hello, my colleague has given this note to me. I'll be at the hotel at 3.30 P.M'. So Paco decides to go to his room to have a rest for an hour and continue reading the book.
After the reading he has a shower 'now hot, now cold, now torrid again' and he is choosing the clothes to wear. He wants to be smart, so he is spending some time to take the right decision. He thinks, 'if I had my white shirt with thin black stripes here, I would put it on', but he has not got this shirt, so he takes a light blue T-shirt he bought in India. Now he is ready to go downstairs to the lobby to meet Phuong and invite her to the puppet theatre.
Certainly, Phuong is already at the reception desk when Paco is at the lobby. He goes towards the desk and greets Phuong. He is a little bit nervous...
Phuong: What about the Temple of Literature, did you like it?
Paco: Yes I did. It was a good recommendation, thank you.
Phuong: Welcome. I read your note. I like water puppets a lot. But it is going to be very difficult, there is too much work today; if I finished early, I'd go with you.
Paco: OK. Then you can tell me later.
Phuong: I will. Bye.
Paco: See you later, then.
Paco goes out for a walk. He is pessimistic and thinks there is little possibility that Phuong goes with him to the theatre. He carries his book with him and sits on a bench near the lake to go on reading.
Identify the two second type conditionals in the passage. Notice the contracted form for the conditional tense in the second one.
Which degree of possibility does this type of conditional denote?
Listening activity
Listen to this Beyonce's song in which the second type of conditional is used.
The title of the song introduces a variation in the use of the verb to be, which one?
Further knowledge
The Quiet American is one of Greene's later books, written in 1955, and draws on his experiences as a SIS agent spying for Britain in World War II in Sierra Leone in the early 1940s and on winters spent from 1951 to 1954 in Saigon reporting on the French colonial war for The Times and Le Figaro. Click here to know more about this novel.