Awesome 3 September grammar and vocabulary review Saint Louis School English Department Carlos Schwerter Garc í a

Second conditional The second conditional uses the past simple after if, then 'would' and the infinitive: if + past simple,...would + infinitive (We can use 'were' instead of 'was' with 'I' and 'he/she/it'. This is mostly done in formal writing). It has two uses. First, we can use it to talk about things in the future that are probably not going to be true. Maybe I'm imagining some dream for example. If I won the lottery, I would buy a big house.(I probably won't win the lottery) If I met the Queen of England, I would say hello. She would travel all over the world if she were rich. She would pass the exam if she ever studied.(She never studies, so this won't happen) Second, we can use it to talk about something in the present which is impossible, because it's not true. Is that clear? Have a look at the examples: If I had his number, I would call him. (I don't have his number now, so it's impossible for me to call him). If I were you, I wouldn't go out with that man.

What are modals of speculation? Modals of speculation are modal auxiliary verbs which express degrees of certainty. In other words, they describe a fact or situation that is definite, probable, possible, or impossible from the speaker's point of view. (As the speaker is speculating, he/she may be wrong.) Here we'll focus on speculating about present or future events. For example: I wish buy a new computer this summer, if I can afford it. He might go back to school for his Master's Degree next year, but he hasn't decided yet.

Use of Should have We can use 'should have' to talk about past events that did not happen. I should have let her know what was happening but I forgot. He should have sent everybody a reminder by . They should have remembered that their guests don't eat pork. We can also use 'should have' to speculate about events that may or may not have happened. She should have got the letter this morning. I expect she'll give us a call about it later. He should have arrived at his office by now. Let's try ringing him. They should have all read that first by this stage. It's time to send the next one. We can use ' should not have' to speculate negatively about what may or may not have happened. She shouldn't have left work yet. I'll call her office. He shouldn't have boarded his plane yet. We can probably still get hold of him. They shouldn't have sent the report off for printing yet. There is still time to make changes. We can also use 'should not have' to regret past actions. I shouldn't have shouted at you. I apologize. We shouldn't have left the office so late. We should have anticipated this bad traffic. They shouldn't have sacked him. He was the most creative person on their team.