What if? Part 1

Marco: Hello, English learners. Welcome back to another great lesson here at EnglishPod. My name is Marco.

Catherine: And my name is Catherine.

Marco: So, Marco, today we've got a little bit of an unusual lesson because we're talking about hypothetical situations.

Catherine: Right. We're talking about a unreal situation or something that may happen or may not happen.

Marco: Okay. So, you're going to hear all about this in today's dialogue. We're going to hear it a couple of times. When we come back, we'll be breaking it down for you. So, you know all about these great phrases and how to talk about not real situations with your friends.

Girl A: Okay. Next question. If Eric asked you out on a date, what would you say?

好了，下一个问题。如果 Eric 约你出去约会，你会怎么说？

Girl B: Duh. I would say yes. Eric is the most popular kid in school.

废话！我当然说愿意啦。Eric 可是学校里最受欢迎的男生！

Girl A: Okay. My turn. What would you do if you won the lottery?

好了，轮到我了。如果你中彩票了你会做什么？

Girl B: Let's see. If I won the lottery, I would buy two tickets for trips around the world.

让我想想。如果我中了彩票，我会买两张环球旅行的机票。

Girl A: If you buy me a ticket, I'll go with you for sure. My dad would freak out if I even mention a trip like that.

如果你给我买一张机票，我肯定跟你一起去。要是我敢跟我爸提这种旅行，他非得气炸不可。

Girl B: All right. This is a good one. What would your mom say if you told her that you're going to get married?

行，这个选项绝了。如果你跟你妈说你要结婚了，她会怎么说？

Girl A: If I told her that, she would faint and have me committed.

我要是跟她说那个，她非得晕过去然后把我送进精神病院不可。

Marco: All right. So, I think that was clear and well, a very common situation to teenage girls talking to each other about, you know, boys and what would you do and da-da-da.

Catherine: Guys do this too. So, don't just put this on the girls, okay?

Marco: I don't think we do it like this though.

Catherine: No, but it's actually a very popular game in the car to play. The "what if" game.

Marco: The "what if" game. Yeah. Exactly. And that's exactly the topic that we want to talk about today is the structure "what if" which is actually called a conditional.

Catherine: All right. It's called a conditional because the results, the thing that happens depends on something else.

Marco: Exactly. So, let's actually take a look at the words in today's language takeaway before we talk about all this grammar stuff.

Marco: Language takeaway.

Catherine: Okay. So, we'll start out with some basic words. Well, you know, they were talking about guys and she said "if Eric asked you out", right? So, to ask somebody out.

Marco: Okay, so this might be a little bit strange because you think, okay, to ask is to ask a question. But to ask out, it's a fixed phrase. It's something you say, these two words go together, right? So, I want to ask someone out, that means I want to invite someone on a date.

Catherine: On a romantic date, usually. So, yeah. I want to ask him out to dinner or he asked me out to the movies.

Marco: Now, if I didn't want to ask somebody out on a romantic date, what verb would you use?

Catherine: I'd say you could invite someone out. But then again, it's always a little bit, well, you can say invite for someone if you're going to ask them on a date too. So, I'd say to ask out is always romantic and to invite can be romantic or just friends.

Marco: Okay. So, to ask somebody out. Now, they were talking about other situations, maybe they would go on a trip or something and she said "my dad would freak out". This is a great phrase, this is something that I used a lot when I was a teenager.

Catherine: The word freak out?

Marco: Freak out. So, the verb to freak out means to be really angry or upset or, you know, it could be a good thing or a bad thing. But usually, when we're talking about our parents, it's a bad thing.

Catherine: It's a bad thing. So, they get angry, they start yelling at you.

Marco: Yeah. So, freak out means like overreact.

Catherine: All right. The last word that we have in language takeaway today is committed. Well let's look at the whole phrase. He says "she would have me committed". So, this is actually being done to someone.

Marco: Now, we did look at this word before but basically for marriage, right? To commit to somebody, to promise.

Catherine: Yeah, but to have someone committed means that you're going to send them away to maybe a mental institution.

Marco: Exactly. So, this means they have psychological problems and someone else sends them to the hospital because they can't send themselves.

Catherine: Exactly. So, it's always used "to have someone committed", right?

Marco: Right, because it's being done to them. They don't want it to happen. It's involuntary.

Catherine: Okay. So, she had him committed. "My mom's going to have me committed if I keep working 20 hours a day."

Marco: Exactly. So, that's the way you use it. So, now you have another way of using this verb. But now I think we should listen to this dialogue again. We're going to slow it down a little bit and then we'll come back and look at this grammar focus that we want to talk about.

Girl A: Okay. Next question. If Eric asked you out on a date, what would you say?

好了，下一个问题。如果 Eric 约你出去约会，你会怎么说？

Girl B: Duh. I would say yes. Eric is the most popular kid in school.

废话！我当然说愿意啦。Eric 可是学校里最受欢迎的男生！

Girl A: Okay. My turn. What would you do if you won the lottery?

好了，轮到我了。如果你中彩票了你会做什么？

Girl B: Let's see. If I won the lottery, I would buy two tickets for a trip around the world.

让我想想。如果我中了彩票，我会买两张环球旅行的机票。

Girl A: If you buy me a ticket, I will go with you for sure. My dad would freak out if I even mention a trip like that.

如果你给我买一张机票，我肯定跟你一起去。要是我敢跟我爸提这种旅行，他非得气炸不可。

Girl B: All right. This is a good one. What would your mom say if you told her you were going to get married?

行，这个选项绝了。如果你跟你妈说你要结婚了，她会怎么说？

Girl A: If I told her that, she would faint and have me committed.

我要是跟她说那个，她非得晕过去然后把我送进精神病院不可。

Marco: All right, so we understood all the vocab now. Now let's take a look at these unreal situations and what we were saying, the "what if" game.

Catherine: Right, so I think it's important to push these into two different categories, right? We have one kind where it's very unrealistic, it's probably not going to happen, that kind of situation. And the other one is a situation that could very well happen, something that's probably very common, okay?

Marco: So the first one we're going to talk about is very unrealistic situations, things that probably won't happen.

Catherine: Okay, so let's take a look at an example that we found in the dialogue. The most common one and I think everybody gets asked this question is, "if you won the lottery, what would you do?"

Marco: Okay, if you won the lottery. So this is a situation that's very uncommon, right? Not many people win the lottery. So we have to say, "if you won the lottery", so we use this verb in the past tense. "If you won the lottery, if this happened, what would you do?"

Catherine: Right. So, Catherine, if you won the lottery, what would you do?

Marco: If I won the lottery, I would buy a boat and sail around the world with my friends.

Catherine: Alright, so another example, again, using the same structure, right? The verb in the simple past tense, we would say, "if you were stuck on an island with one other person, who would that be?"

Marco: Alright, so if you were stuck on a desert island with one person, who would that person be? So Marco, I'm going to ask you, who would it be?

Catherine: I think it would be an engineer or a scientist that could probably get me off the island.

Marco: What about your girlfriend?

Catherine: No, no, well, you know, that's the point, if I can get to her quicker.

Marco: Okay. I would say maybe kind of romantic, but kind of not.

Catherine: So that's the first situation. We've got these situations like being stuck on an island, winning the lottery. These are very unlikely. But what about the other kind?

Marco: But before we move on to that, you notice that we use the verb "were", we didn't say, "if I was on an island", I said, "if I were", right? Or "if you were".

Catherine: So this is the way that you use it in these conditionals. "If I were you", or "if you were president of the United States".

Marco: Yeah, this is a rule. So this is a grammar rule. We're not going to describe why it happens because it's very, very complicated. And you can look it up on our site. But we're going to describe how to use it. That's the most important. So we can say, for example, Marco, if I were you, I would dye my hair red.

Catherine: Why?

Marco: I don't know. I think it would look cool.

Catherine: I don't think so. So "if I were you, I would". Or "if you were me, what would you do?"

Marco: Exactly. So we always use it like this, right? If you're going to use this conditional, always use "were" for the subject. Never "was".

Catherine: Right. So you can tell. This is a very, very big grammar issue. A lot of English speakers make this mistake.

Marco: Yes, very many. But now you know that you shouldn't make this mistake and you can speak properly.

Catherine: All right, so now that we've seen these semi-unreal situations, let's move on to something that's a little bit more probable, that it may happen.

Marco: Right. So we've got these situations that are common or likely. For example, in this lesson we hear, "I will go with you for sure." So this is, "if you buy me a ticket to travel, of course I will go with you." So "if you buy", this is in the present tense, "if you buy", then "I will".

Catherine: Right. Right. So now you notice the difference. The verb is in the present and then we use, instead of "would", we use "will". So again, I can say, "if it rains tomorrow, I will stay home and watch TV all day."

Marco: Okay, so think about this. Before we talked about going to desert islands, now we're talking about rain and the weather. They're very, very different. The rain is, you know, it's very common. So we can say, "if it rains tomorrow, I will need an umbrella."

Catherine: What about this? "If we have lunch tomorrow, what will we eat?"

Marco: Okay, so we have lunch pretty much every day, right?

Catherine: Yeah, pretty much.

Marco: So again, it's a situation that is very probable. So "if we have lunch tomorrow, we will probably eat", I don't know, pasta, I think. I'm feeling like pasta.

Catherine: Pasta, noodles. Yeah.

Marco: All right, so Marco, let's take another listen to some of these phrases and try and figure out while you're listening, which kind of conditional it is, first or the second.

Man: Example one. If it's sunny today, we will go to the park.

例句一：如果今天天气晴朗，我们就去公园。

Woman: Example two. I would get a divorce if I were you.

例句二：如果我是你，我就离婚。

Man: Example three. Mary will be very sad if Joe leaves.

例句三：如果 Joe 离开，Mary 会非常伤心。

Woman: Example four. We wouldn't be so late if Nick drove faster.

例句四：如果 Nick 开车能快点，我们就不至于晚成这样了。

Marco: Very good. So we have two different examples and the first conditional is the one that we mentioned is very probable and the second conditional is the one that's not so probable. So they're very easy to distinguish. You don't really need to know the names, just know how to use them, right?

Catherine: Exactly. And so just remember, "if you were me, what would you do?" We've got these kind of pairs, these words that go together. And the other one is more common. "If it rains tomorrow, I will bring an umbrella."

Marco: Perfect. So why don't we listen to this dialogue for the last time just to kind of reinforce everything and then we'll come back and talk a little bit more.

Girl A: Okay. Next question. If Eric asked you out on a date, what would you say?

好了，下一个问题。如果 Eric 约你出去约会，你会怎么说？

Girl B: Duh. I would say yes. Eric is the most popular kid in school.

废话！我当然说愿意啦。Eric 可是学校里最受欢迎的男生！

Girl A: Okay. My turn. What would you do if you won the lottery?

好了，轮到我了。如果你中彩票了你会做什么？

Girl B: Let's see. If I won the lottery, I would buy two tickets for trips around the world.

让我想想。如果我中了彩票，我会买两张环球旅行的机票。

Girl A: If you buy me a ticket, I'll go with you for sure. My dad would freak out if I even mention a trip like that.

如果你给我买一张机票，我肯定跟你一起去。要是我敢跟我爸提这种旅行，他非得气炸不可。

Girl B: All right. This is a good one. What would your mom say if you told her that you're going to get married?

行，这个选项绝了。如果你跟你妈说你要结婚了，她会怎么说？

Girl A: If I told her that, she would faint and have me committed.

我要是跟她说那个，她非得晕过去然后把我送进精神病院不可。

Marco: So Marco, if we talk any more about grammar, someone's going to have to have me committed.

Catherine: It is a little bit difficult to talk about grammar, especially on a podcast because it's such a difficult topic and it's also kind of heavy, right?

Marco: It is, but I'll tell you this. These are very, very common phrases. People use these all the time. We talk in hypotheticals very often. So if you're asking for advice, for example, or if you're just playing a game in the car, you're going to encounter these and it's very important to be able to know how to use them.

Catherine: So, and this is what we want to see now. Please come to our website at EnglishPod.com and you have a million questions. You have a million hypotheticals that you can leave on our website. So let us know. Ask us the craziest, funniest, weirdest questions that you can, right?

Marco: Exactly. And if you have questions about the stuff that we've been talking about, you're not really clear on some things, just ask us because we're happy to answer your questions and give more examples on the website.

Catherine: All right, so we'll see you guys there and until next time.

Marco: Bye, everyone.

Catherine: Bye.