The Past Conditional

The Past Conditional

The past conditional describes a pastsituation that never happened, or it did happen and the person speakingis describing the possibility of something not happening in the past.This is also called the past unreal or the past contrary-to-factHere's an example If I had gone to that party, I would have had a good timesituation: I didn't go to the party; therefore, I didn't have a good time "If I had gone to that party" uses the past perfect in this part of the sentence "I would have had a good time" is the likely resultSometimes you can do this without "if" and just use the past perfect Had I heard the weather report, I would have taken an umbrellaor....If I had heard the weather report, I would have taken an umbrella These are both good sentences, but the second one is used more often Here are some more examples If she had been more careful, she wouldn't have spilled her coffee She wasn't careful, and this is the result. You can't change the past, but you can talk about it If Stephanie hadn't climbed up the tree, she wouldn't have fallen down and broken her arm But, in fact, she climbed the tree, fell down and broke her arm If she had given up smoking, she wouldn't have died at such an early age She didn't give up smoking, and then she died because of this fact