The “future” or “first” conditional is a structure used in English to talk about possible future events. It’s often used to express a cause and effect relationship, where the effect (the main clause) is conditional on the cause (the if-clause). The structure is typically: “If” + present simple tense, “will” + verb (bare infinitive).
Here’s a student example of a future conditional sentence:
If you don’t care about the topic,
you will have a confusing party.
PELIC Chinese female level 3 writing class.
Expert example:
And if you don’t give it a rest,
you‘re gonna lose your voice completely.
There are many English Grammar Profile points in multiple categories that highlight the same grammar point.
A2 point 15 in the category of PRESENT:
Present simple after ‘if‘ to talk about real and imagined situations.
The examples for point 15 contain either ‘will‘ or ‘can’t‘ in the main clauses.
A2 point 29 in the category of MODALITY is defined as:
‘will’ in the main clause after an ‘if-‘ clause to talk about possible future situations.
A2 point 8 CONJUNCTIONS:
limited range of simple subordinating conjunctions ‘(if, when, so, while)’ to introduce a subordinate clause.
ADVANCED EXAMPLES:
If both choose to spare the other,
the fox will eat just one of each of their limbs.
while the other sacrifices,
the sparer will be fully eaten
while the traitor will run away
with all his limbs intact.
Finally, if both choose to sacrifice,
the fox will eat 3 limbs from each.
iWeb doesn’t allow us to search easily for such long strings. We can start by using the same ‘if clause’ search as done here: if-present-simple-modal, then choose the first A2 vocabulary found, and then search manually to the right of these:
13 IF YOU WANT TO KEEP 15277
- If you want to keep your data on-premise or you want the flexibility of the cloud, a partner will accommodate your choice.
- Vet bills for rabbits can be expensive, but if you want to keep them and bond them, they will both have to be neutered.
*These are the first two examples with ‘will’ in the first 113 examples of ‘if you want to keep’. Overall, expert corpora are not giving us good A2 level examples. Next, we should check the student corpus.
PELIC STUDENT EXAMPLES:
The most important thing is doing the homework because if you do your homework you will always succeed.
Arabic, Female, Level 3, Writing Class.
Also, don’t miss your classes or come late because if you do you will miss some information that could be very important.
Arabic, Male, Level 3, Writing Class.
You should study very hard and practice because if you did not do this you will not learn English.
Arabic, Male, Level 3, Writing Class.
*These are the only examples in the clause order in level 3 Writing, and all of them contain ‘because if’ and there is a missing comma which makes this seem like it was a form focussed task where punctuation was not so important.
Here are examples from 1934 from the MOVIE corpus:
Cleopatra
- “Well, we’ll go into that if you do, but I don’t think you will.”
- “I’ll govern with you if I have to.”
- “We’ll fight them all if we have to fight alone.”
Evelyn Prentice
If he‘s home now, I‘ll ask him to join us.
Jimmy the Gent
- “If that Louie knows what’s good for him, he’ll never come in.”
Kiss and Make-Up
- “And I’ll have even more if I divide the glory with you”
Little Miss Marker
- “I’ll buy it, if you do something for us.”
- “Maybe they’ll bring him back if you remember to say ” thank you”?”
No Greater Glory
- “We’ll take them. If you rest and get well, I’ll get you a bugle.”