Conditional Sentence Type 1

First Conditional: real possibility

We are talking about the future. We are thinking about a particular condition or situation in the future, and the result of this condition. There is a real possibility that this condition will happen. For example, it is morning. You are at home. You plan to play tennis this afternoon. But there are some clouds in the sky. Imagine that it rains. What will you do?

IF	condition	result
	present simple	WILL + base verb
If	it rains	I will stay at home.

Notice that we are thinking about a future condition. It is not raining yet. But the sky is cloudy and you think that it could rain. We use the present simple tense to talk about the possible future condition. We use WILL + base verb to talk about the possible future result. The important thing about the first conditional is that there is a real possibility that the condition will happen. Here are some more examples (do you remember the two basic structures: [IF condition result] and [result IF condition]?):

IF	condition	result
	present simple	WILL + base verb
If	I see Mary	I will tell her.
If	Tara is free tomorrow	he will invite her.
If	they do not pass their exam	their teacher will be sad.
If	it rains tomorrow	will you stay at home?
If	it rains tomorrow	what will you do?

result	IF	condition
WILL + base verb		present simple
I will tell Mary	if	I see her.
He will invite Tara	if	she is free tomorrow.
Their teacher will be sad	if	they do not pass their exam.
Will you stay at home	if	it rains tomorrow?
What will you do	if	it rains tomorrow?

exercises!

Some friends are planning a party. Everybody wants to party, but nobody's really keen on preparing and organising the party. So everybody comes up with a few conditions, just to make sure that the others will also do something.

Complete the Conditional Sentences Type I.

1. If Caroline and Sue prepareprepareswill prepare the salad, Phil decoratedecorateswill decorate the house.
2. If Sue cutcutswill cut the onions for the salad, Caroline peelpeelswill peel the mushrooms.
3. Jane hooverhooverswill hover the sitting room if Aaron and Tim movemoveswill move the furniture.
4. If Bob tidytidieswill tidy up the kitchen, Anita cleancleanswill clean the toilet.
5. Elaine buybuyswill buy the drinks if somebody helphelpswill help her carry the bottles.
6. If Alan and Rebecca organiseorganiseswill organise the food, Mary and Conor makemakeswill make the sandwiches.
7. If Bob looklookswill look after the barbecue, Sue letletswill let the guests in.
8. Frank playplayswill play the DJ if the others bringbringswill bring along their CDs.
9. Alan mixmixeswill mix the drinks if Jane givegiveswill give him some of her cocktail recipes.
10. If they all dodoeswill do their best, the party isarewill be great.

Conditional Sentence type 2 


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Posted in: English Class