# If you finally decided to learn English (conditionals)



## El10

What type of conditional sentence is the following? 

If you finally decided to learn English, then you should be practicing as much as you can by now.


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## Loob

Hello El10

Where did you find this sentence?  

It looks rather strange to me - I would have expected:
_If you *have* finally decided to learn English, then you should be practicing as much as you can by now._


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## Greyfriar

Hello,

I believe this is a _factual conditional _sentence.  'If you finally decided to learn English' is the first factual clause, followed by the rest of the sentence which is conditional on the first part.

Please note that the verb is 'practi*s*e' and the noun is 'practi*c*e' (BE).


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## Loob

Greyfriar said:


> ... Please note that the verb is 'practi*s*e' and the noun is 'practi*c*e'.


(The verb is "practice" in AmE, Greyfriar.)


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## El10

Thank you both. I have a couple of questions:
1._ Why is it wrong to use the simple past tense, "finally decided," in the if clause  ? 
2._ Why is it correct to use the present perfect "have finally decided" ?
3._ I though factual conditionals could only be used with the following combinations of tenses:



[*=left]"The dog is always happy when Dad stays home,"
that's a simple statement of present habitual fact. A general truth is expressed in the same way:



[*=left]"If the sun shines all day, it gets hot."
Statements of habitual fact can also be made in the past:



[*=left]"If we ate out at all, it was always in a cheap restaurant."
In my example sentence I used the simple past tense in the if clause and the present progressive tense in the result clause, so the sentence I wrote doesn't match any of the structures used in the examples above; and although it's a factual conditional sentence, it also looks like an example of a mixed conditional. Can factual conditional sentences be formulated using any of the tenses? I mean, the zero, first, second, and third conditionals all use different combinations of tenses, which are like rules and help learners remember how to use these conditionals. I've also learned that the zero and the second conditionals are both factual, while the second and third conditionals are hypothetical. So the problem is that the combination of the tenses in the original sentence, regardless of whether I use the past simple or present perfect tenses in the if clause, doesn't match any of the structures I have learned so far, and that's why I don't know whether the first sentence is an example of one of the 4 common conditionals or an example of a mixed conditional.(By the way, it doesn't match the structures of the mixed conditionals I've learned either.) I guess, I'm confusing things.​


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## Loob

Hi again El10





El10 said:


> ... 1._ Why is it wrong to use the simple past tense, "finally decided," in the if clause  ?
> 2._ Why is it correct to use the present perfect "have finally decided" ?


I don't think it's actually "wrong"; it just feels as though there's something missing - it would be fine if it said "If you finally decided *last week*..." (ie if you added a specific time reference).


El10 said:


> 3._ I though factual conditionals could only be used with the following combinations of tenses:
> 
> 
> 
> [*=left]"The dog is always happy when Dad stays home,"
> that's a simple statement of present habitual fact. A general truth is expressed in the same way:
> 
> 
> 
> [*=left]"If the sun shines all day, it gets hot."
> Statements of habitual fact can also be made in the past:
> 
> 
> 
> [*=left]"If we ate out at all, it was always in a cheap restaurant."


No, factual conditionals - conditionals where the meaning is "If X is true, it follows that Y is true" - can be produced in a fairly wide range of tenses/ tense + modal combinations:
_If she is there, he says hello to her.
If she was there, he said hello to her.
If she has gone away, he can't have said hello to her.
If she'll be in London tomorrow, he won't be able to say hello to her.
_


El10 said:


> ... I mean, the zero, first, second, and third conditionals all use different combinations of tenses, which are like rules and help learners remember how to use these conditionals. I've also learned that the zero and the second conditionals are both factual, while the second and third conditionals are hypothetical. So the problem is that the combination of the tenses in the original sentence, regardless of whether I use the past simple or present perfect tenses in the if clause, doesn't match any of the structures I have learned so far, and that's why I don't know whether the first sentence is an example of one of the 4 common conditionals or an example of a mixed conditional.(By the way, it doesn't match the structures of the mixed conditionals I've learned either.) I guess, I'm confusing things.


No, you're not confusing things.

I've always really disliked the zero/first/second/third straitjacket that ESL teaching traditionally puts conditional sentences into.  Real life is much more flexible and interesting!

I suppose, if I had to choose, I'd say that your sentence is an example of a zero conditional_._ But I'd really rather not choose....​


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## Thomas Tompion

El10 said:


> What type of conditional sentence is the following?
> 
> If you finally decided to learn English, then you should be practicing as much as you can by now.


The question is complicated by your use of '_should_', El10, which can have many meanings, and represent several different tenses.

Let's suppose that by '_you should be practicing_' you mean '_you ought to be practicing_' - you say in post #5 that you are using _'the present progressive tense in the result clause_', so this seems fair.

People may not like the standard formulations of conditional sentences, but they cover a large percentage of conditional sentence patterns, and are, in my view, a handy guide for learners in a complicated area.  There is no standard form of conditional (or of mixed conditional) which covers your combination of Type II if-clause with Type 0 main clause.  This sequence of tenses is not normally used, so you shouldn't be surprised that people don't know what you are trying to say.

I'm not clear about the difference between a sentence which is incomprehensible and one which is wrong - this is not a distinction I've ever been tempted to draw.

I suspect that people will try to make your sentence fit into one of the standard sequential patterns: 

Thus Loob, in #2, suggests she thinks you mean _If you *have* finally decided to learn English, then you should be practicing as much as you can by now - _Present in both clauses - type 0 conditional, ie. not a conditional sentence at all: it means _Given that you have finally decided to learn English, then you should be practicing as much as you can by now._

You ask why you need to change _if you finally decided_ to_ if you have finally decided_.  In reply, I'd say:

1.  For this sort of false conditional sentence (0 conditional - what I've understood you to mean by a 'factual' conditional, a term I'm not familiar with), you need tenses with the same time reference in both parts.  You use the present progressive in the main clause, so you need a tense with continuous present application in the main clause, ie. the past perfect.

2.  I think Loob could equally have suggested that you change the tense of the main clause, and write_ 'If you finally decided to learn English, then you should have been practicing as much as you could by then'._  Maybe the adverbial of time (by now) discouraged that view.

You produce a sentence which fails to obey the patterns of sentence sequencing normal in English sentences of this type, and then ask what sort of conditional it is.

The answer is, in my view:

1. That it is unidiomatic, and so people wouldn't know what you meant.

2. That the likely interpretation which people would put on your words would be that you were trying to produce a type 0 conditional - type 0 conditionals are not true conditional sentences at all: there's no sense of a circumstance being consequent upon the meeting of a condition.

So the answer to your question, in my view, is that your sentence is no sort of conditional at all.


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## wandle

El10 said:


> What type of conditional sentence is the following?
> If you finally decided to learn English, then you should be practicing as much as you can by now.


I agree with the view that this is not a correctly expressed sentence. It can be made correct by two changes: 
(1) as *Loob* suggests, changing 'decided' to 'have decided' (because the time reference of the verb extends from the past to the present); 
(2) changing 'by now' to 'now' (because the time reference of 'should be practising' involves the present only):

_If you have finally decided to learn English, then you should now be practising as much as you can._

What type of conditional is this? It is a present open (or first) conditional.

As for the so-called zero conditional (which is also a present open conditional), the page Perfect English Grammar makes two points on this: (1) it involves two present simple verbs; (2) it is used when the result will always happen. It gives this example:  _If water reaches 100 degrees, it boils._

_Pace_ *Thomas Tompion*, this is still a genuine conditional sentence, because it correctly employs an 'if'-clause: the 'if'-clause states a condition upon which the conclusion is dependent.


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## El10

wandle said:


> I agree with the view that this is not a correctly expressed sentence. It can be made correct by two changes:
> (1) as *Loob* suggests, changing 'decided' to 'have decided' (because the time reference of the verb extends from the past to the present);
> (2) changing 'by now' to 'now' (because the time reference of 'should be practising' involves the present only):
> 
> _If you have finally decided to learn English, then you should now be practising as much as you can._
> 
> What type of conditional is this? It is a present open (or first) conditional.
> 
> As for the so-called zero conditional (which is also a present open conditional), the page Perfect English Grammar makes two points on this: (1) it involves two present simple verbs; (2) it is used when the result will always happen. It gives this example:  _If water reaches 100 degrees, it boils._
> 
> _Pace_ *Thomas Tompion*, this is still a genuine conditional sentence, because it correctly employs an 'if'-clause: the 'if'-clause states a condition upon which the conclusion is dependent.



Let me see if I got this straight: 
1._ It is definitely not correct to use the simple past in the if clause of a conditional that refers to the present. However, any of the present tenses could be used in this case, whether it be present simple, perfect, or progressive. 

2._I guess I used "by now" incorrectly in my first example because I got the usages of "should" and "must" mixed up. For instance, in the sentence: _If he's finally decided to take the exam, then he must be studying as much as he can by now/by this time/at this point_, which has a different meaning than my first example since what I'm doing this time is drawing a conclusion, "by now" makes much more sense because it's used along with "must," which gives a feeling of completeness to the sentence. If I were to add "should" in order to give a suggestion, I would have to replace "by now/by this time" with "now" since the suggestion is made at the very moment of speaking. I don't know if this assumption is correct, but I got the feeling that "by now" fits better in the second example I just gave.  

3._ You say that the corrected version of my original example: " If you have finally decided to learn English, then you should now be practicing as much as you can." is a first conditional sentence. I know that the present perfect tense can be used in the if clause of a first conditional sentence, but can the present progressive tense be used in the result clause ? I know that "will," "be going to," and the modal verbs can go in the result clause, but I've never seen an example including the present progressive in the result clause, especially when the progressive tense doesn't refer to the future but to and ongoing action " you should now be practicing." Then why is the corrected sentence an example of the first conditional?

Thank you.


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## wandle

El10 said:


> ... can the present progressive tense be used in the result clause?


Yes: and the words 'should be practising' confirm that this is a present conditional, just because they present the action as an ongoing one in present time. That is what shows that the time reference of the 'if'-clause extends to the present.
Other possible examples: _If water is still coming in, then it is still raining; If you keep throwing up such big divots, you are hitting too far under the ball._

At the same time, the open or factual nature of the 'if'-clause (either the person has finally decided or not) shows that the topic sentence is a first conditional.


> It is definitely not correct to use the simple past in the if clause of a conditional that refers to the present.


I am afraid this comment is too broadly expressed. It could be taken as applying to a second conditional, because second conditionals refer to the present or future: 
_If he tried harder, he would succeed_;_ If I had more money, I could buy a yacht_.

Besides, it is perfectly possible to mix tenses in an open conditional: _If you spoke like that to your teacher, then you do deserve to be suspended._


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## Thomas Tompion

El10 said:


> Let me see if I got this straight:
> 1._ It is definitely not correct to use the simple past in the if clause of a conditional that refers to the present. However, any of the present tenses could be used in this case, whether it be present simple, perfect, or progressive.


I can't think of a case where it is right.


El10 said:


> _I guess I used "by now" incorrectly in my first example because I got the usages of "should" and "must" mixed up. For instance, in the sentence: _If he's finally decided to take the exam, then he must be studying as much as he can by now/by this time/at this point_, which has a different meaning than my first example since what I'm doing this time is drawing a conclusion, "by now" makes much more sense because it's used along with "must," which gives a feeling of completeness to the sentence. If I were to add "should" in order to give a suggestion, I would have to replace "by now/by this time" with "now" since the suggestion is made at the very moment of speaking. I don't know if this assumption is correct, but I got the feeling that "by now" fits better in the second example I just gave.


I'm not clear that this is right.  I think you might find that 'by now' worked perfectly well with some modals.


El10 said:


> ._ You say that the corrected version of my original example: " If you have finally decided to learn English, then you should now be practicing as much as you can." is a first conditional sentence. I know that the present perfect tense can be used in the if clause of a first conditional sentence, but can the present progressive tense be used in the result clause ? I know that "will," "be going to," and the modal verbs can go in the result clause, but I've never seen an example including the present progressive in the result clause, especially when the progressive tense doesn't refer to the future but to and ongoing action " you should now be practicing." Then why is the corrected sentence an example of the first conditional?
> 
> Thank you.


I think you are right about this, El10. _ "If you have finally decided to learn English, then you should now be practicing as much as you can_" is not, in my view, a first conditional sentence. 

 It's almost certainly not a true conditional sentence at all, because _'if'_ probably means '_given that_'.


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## wandle

Thomas Tompion said:


> _ "If you have finally decided to learn English, then you should now be practicing as much as you can_" is not, in my view, a first conditional sentence.
> 
> It's almost certainly not a true conditional sentence at all, because _'if'_ probably means '_given that_'.


I would offer two comments: it is still a conditional sentence even when 'if' means 'given that'; and there is no problem in using the present perfect indicative in the 'if' clause, or 'should' in the main clause. The first meaning of _if _in the OED's lengthy article includes 'given that':


> *A*. _conj._
> *I*. Introducing a clause of condition or supposition (the protasis of a conditional sentence).
> 
> On condition that; given or granted that; in (the) case that; supposing that; on the supposition that.
> 
> *1*. _With the conditional clause or protasis in the indicative._ The indicative after _if_ implies that the speaker expresses no adverse opinion as to the truth of the statement in the clause; it is consistent with his acceptance of it. (In modern use the indicative is preferred to the subjunctive in cases which lie near the border-line of 1 and 2.)
> 
> *a*. Conditional clause in _pres. (or pres. perf.) ind._


The article gives four sets of examples for *A. 1. 1. a.* ('if'-clause in pres. (or pres. perf.) ind._):_


> *α*. _with principal clause in present (or pres. perf.) indicative._


This includes the example:


> 1861   J. Kavanagh _Fr. Women of Lett. I. viii. 214_   If I have not married, it is because I have not loved.


Here 'if' means 'given or granted that'.

The nearest example to the topic sentence is under the third heading:


> *γ*. _with principal clause in imperative._





> 1611   _Bible (King James) Philemon 18_   If hee hath wronged thee or oweth thee ought, put that on mine account.


(The King James Bible is in an older style of English, but that sentence structure is perfectly current today.)

There are also examples with 'might' and 'should' in the  main clause (though these do not, as it happens, have the present perfect in the 'if'-clause).


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## Loob

El10, you might find this usingenglish web-page on 'Factual Conditionals' helpful.  

It starts by explaining that when speakers present an action/state in 'factual conditional' terms, they are stating that they accept that action or state as realit_y. _It then discusses such conditionals under various headings:
(a) general truths eg_ If you heat ice, it melts._ 
(b) habitual actions eg _If Andrea cooks, I wash up._
(c) accepted truths eg _If it’s ten o’clock already, then I’m late._

This last example is very similar in structure to _If you have finally decided to learn English, then you should be practicing as much as you can by now._

Here's what the web-page says about "accepted truths":





> In examples #12, _If you heat ice, it melts__, _a general truth, and #13_ If Andrea cooks, I wash up_, a habitual act, the IF-clause action/state reported by the speaker was known before the reporting. In #14, _If it’s ten o’clock already, then I’m late_,the  situation is different: the situation was unknown to the speaker until  moments before the utterance. Indeed, such utterances are frequently  preceded by another speaker providing the knowledge; in #14, it would be  the other speaker saying, “_It’s ten o’clock_”_.  _In the subsequent conditional, _if_ conveys a similar meaning to _given that, accepting that._


It then gives quite a few examples of this type of construction, with a range of tenses.


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## Thomas Tompion

My point about_ given that_ for _if_ is an obvious one I think, Loob.

_Given that it's ten o'clock alread_y, _I'm late_ is logically equivalent to_ Because it's ten o'clock, I'm late._

I know there are people who mistakenly wrap up simple causal statements as conditionals, but I don't think we should let them mislead learners here.

There are other dangerous uses of_ if_, of course, like _if_ to mean_ though_.  That can lead one into delightful nonsenses, like _Cigarettes are relaxing, if carcinogenic._

No doubt someone will tell us, in _ex cathedra_ terms, that this is an entirely correct form too.


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## wandle

_Pace_ *Thomas Tompion*, if it is not too _ex cathedra_ to quote the OED entry on 'if' again, that authority specifically recognises 'given that', 'granted that', 'though' and 'even though' (but not 'because') as meanings of 'if':


> *4*. In pregnant senses:
> * a*. Even if, even though; though; granted that.


Examples given include:


> _a_1899  _ Mod._   If he did say so, you needn't believe him. If they are poor, they are at any rate happy.
> 1965   N_ew Statesman 16 Apr. 598/3  _ If Mr Stewart is top of the Tory pops, other ministers are also high up in the charts.
> 1967   L_istener 17 Aug. 205/1 _  If my father's people were mill-workers.., my mother's people were agricultural workers.
> 1969   _Listener 24 Apr. 585/1_   If Mozart was a life-long admirer of J. C. Bach, his views on Clementi were disparaging, to put it mildly.


Further on, we find this:


> *6*. The conditional clause is often elliptical, and may dwindle down to _if_ and a word or phrase sufficient to suggest the complete sense;


Putting *4* and *6* together, we can see that it is legitimate to rewrite the second 1899 example as: 'They are happy, if poor'.
Thus the OED regards 'if poor' and similar expressions as elliptical conditional clauses: we can properly conclude that, even if elliptical, they are still conditional.

Please note that meanings *4* and *6*, and the extracts in post 12, are all included under the same primary heading:


> A*.* _conj_.
> *I*. Introducing a clause of condition or supposition (the protasis of a conditional sentence).


Of course, it is true that when 'if' is used in the meaning 'given that' or 'though', the effective force of the clause is concessive, or even adversative. In such cases, it is expressing a background or a contrast rather than a condition on which the truth of the main clause logically depends. Nevertheless, the OED is saying that the 'if'-clause is still a conditional clause, and the sentence is still a conditional sentence. It is syntactically conditional, even if it is semantically concessive; and the syntactical rules which apply are still those of conditional sentences.

It seems to me that the question raised by the original post is the syntactical one and that the purpose of the question is to establish what rules apply to the sentence proposed.


El10 said:


> What type of conditional sentence is the following?
> If you finally decided to learn English, then you should be practicing as much as you can by now.


My answer is that once the proposed sentence is modified as in post 8, we can say that it is a present open conditional with the present perfect indicative in the 'if'-clause and the modal verb 'should' in the main clause; it may be called a variety of first condtional.


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## Loob

wandle said:


> _..._ it may be called a variety of first condtional.


I never debate with wandle ~ so I'll just record the fact that I disagree.


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## wandle

Please note, I do not recommend calling it a variety of first conditional. 


wandle said:


> My answer is that once the proposed sentence is modified as in post 8, we can say that it is a present open conditional with the present perfect indicative in the 'if'-clause and the modal verb 'should' in the main clause;


I added the comment about the first conditional because I had come across a website in which all open conditionals were classified as first conditionals.


Loob said:


> I've always really disliked the zero/first/second/third straitjacket that ESL teaching traditionally puts conditional sentences into. Real life is much more flexible and interesting!


This page:  How Do We Overcome the Difficulties of Teaching Conditionals? agrees that the scheme of types 1, 2 and 3 (or 0, 1, 2 and 3) is over-simplified and unrealistic, because it does not cover all possibilities. It seeks to offer a practical method and proposes a scheme which combines a small set of conditionals with wishes and hopes.  It adds an appendix containing Fulcher's classification, consisting of twenty different types, in which the first three are the 'traditional' types 1, 2 and 3 and the revised topic sentence (as given in post 8) is number 19.

For myself, I analyse conditionals in the way I was taught at school and have myself used in teaching:

First, all conditionals are either open or closed (as regards the truth of the condition expressed).
An open condition is one which does not deny or cast into doubt the truth of the idea expressed.
A closed condition is one which does deny or cast into doubt the truth of the idea expressed.

Secondly, all conditionals refer to past, present or future time.

That gives six categories which cover all cases: past open, present open, future open; past closed, present closed and future closed.


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## Thomas Tompion

wandle said:


> Please note, I do not recommend calling it a variety of first conditional. [...]


Here  you "do not recommend calling it a variety of first conditional", yet you said earlier "it may be called a variety of first condtional" (passage quoted by Loob).

How is anyone expected to make sense of this?


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## wandle

wandle said:


> I added the comment about the first conditional because I had come across a website in which all open conditionals were classified as first conditionals.


If one source calls it that, it is possible that others may do so.


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## Thomas Tompion

We mustn't lose sight of El10's question.

Perhaps it would be wise to outline what a first conditional is, so that we can be clear that this isn't one: _If you finally decided to learn English, then you should be practicing as much as you can by now._

I think most learners know that a first conditional is a sentence of this form: _if she comes, I will see her_ - present in the if-clause, future in the main clause.

The sentence tells us that her coming is a sufficient condition for my seeing her.

_If you finally decided to learn English, then you should be practicing as much as you can by now_ - simple past in the if-clause, present in the main clause.

This is certainly not a first conditional sentence.  To me the idea is absurd and the suggestion unhelpful.


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## wandle

Thomas Tompion said:


> _If you finally decided to learn English, then you should be practicing as much as you can by now_ - simple past in the if-clause, present in the main clause.
> This is certainly not a first conditional sentence.  To me the idea is absurd and the suggestion unhelpful.


That has not been suggested. I for one took care to avoid classifying that sentence as any kind of conditional.

There is more than one definition of a first conditional on the web, but I agree that it is better not to try to fit the topic sentence (even after corrections) into  the 0, 1, 2, 3 classification at all.


wandle said:


> My answer is that once the proposed sentence is modified as in post 8,
> 
> 
> 
> _If you have finally decided to learn English, then you should now be practising as much as you can_.
> 
> 
> 
> we can say that it is a present open conditional with the present perfect indicative in the 'if'-clause and the modal verb 'should' in the main clause;
Click to expand...


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## boozer

If you finally decided to learn English, you should be practicing...
I have been thinking about this sentence and I have some issues with it.
1.     ‘If you finally decided’ sounds to me wrong in this context. I am a person who generally believes in the existence of past open conditionals, but I do not believe the context here supports the use of the past tense. There are cases where we could easily say things like ‘If my wife bought bread, we are going to have toast for breakfast tomorrow’. The past tense in this example is admissible and suitable if you know that your wife went shopping and you know when she went and you have not met her yet if she has returned. But in our example such a context is hard to perceive. True, ‘deciding’ can be an instantaneous action taking place in the past, but the speaker cannot know if and when there was an occasion on which ‘you’ could have decided. It is far more logical to assume that you now are, or are not, in the state of ‘having decided’ and use, as already suggested, the present perfect – ‘if you have decided’. In short, unlike other action verbs, it is hard to pinpoint the moment of deciding, so the use of past simple sounds wrong.
2.     The past simple in ‘if you decided’ does not have to be wrong, though. It can be American. My English is generally not American, but I suspect the average AE speaker would be more comfortable with ‘if you decided’.
3.     Another thing I find rather awkward here is the inevitable association with a standard 2nd conditional carried by ‘if you decided’, contradicted by ‘you should be practicing’.
As regards the classification of the original example, I agree with what Loob said – life is larger than the 0-1-2-3-conditional straitjacket, so no attempts should be made to classify it.  Indeed, for me a sentence like ‘If my wife bought bread, we are going to have toast for breakfast tomorrow’ could reasonably be seen as a variety of conditional type 1 but, as I said, I do not think the one we are dealing with is correct enough to be considered. In fact, I think it is an indefinable-sort-of-dubious-conditional-that-is-best-avoided.


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## Loob

Thank you, boozer-young-sir - you've made me ponder further, with the following results:

(1) I don't know whether _If you finally decided to learn English, you should be practicing..._ works in AmE; I know it doesn't work for me, and that I would need _If you have finally decided to learn English, you should be practising..._

(2) I don't think it's a past open conditional - in other words, I don't think it equates to ‘If my wife bought bread, we are going to have toast for breakfast tomorrow’.

(3) I think it's a closed conditional - but closed in the opposite direction to the classic type III "If I had done X, then ...." (which implies I _didn't_ do X).  The implication here is that the speaker accepts that the other person _did_ do X.

(4) I'm delighted to have found the usingenglish analysis.  It makes much more sense to me than  0/1/2/3!


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## JustKate

"If you finally decided to learn English, you should be practicing" doesn't work in AmE either. It needs to be "If you have finally..." I've tried to come up with a context in which the "If you finally" version works, and I can't.


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## Loob

Thank you, Kate!


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## El10

The sentence might be wrong, but I guess it's possible in the following context:

A: Hey, I finally decided to learn English *yesterday*; I have an exam in one week. Can I borrow some of your books? 
B: Good for you. Sure you can.
5 days later...
A: Hey, do you want to play Xbox? I've got myself the new Call of Duty game; it's so cool.  I've been playing it the whole week.
B: No, I'm busy, plus *"if you finally decided to learn English, you should be practicing as much as you can by now."* You need to stop procrastinating and start studying for your exam.
A: Seriously?
B: Dude, I'm just kidding; of course I wanna play!


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## Loob

I'm sorry, El10 - I don't really understand your example. _Later edit: I understand now!_

I still think that what you want here is "If you have finally decided...".

I also still think that your sentence doesn't fit into the Type 0/1/2/3 classification._

.........

(I have the feeling that we're going round in circles....)_


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## Thomas Tompion

I'm afraid I think you guess wrong, El10, for the reasons several of us have been giving you.

ps. cross-posted with Loob.  You need the present force of the present perfect, to match the present of the main clause.

Like Loob, I think we've told you this already.

I'm wondering if it's the _finally_ which makes this sentence hard to accept.

I think I'd feel differently about *"if you decided to learn English, you should be practicing as much as you can by now," *which is closer to Loob's example about buying bread, and which doesn't tempt me so strongly to understand _if_ as _given that._


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## El10

Thomas Tompion said:


> I'm afraid I think you guess wrong, El10, for the reasons several of us have been giving you.
> 
> ps. cross-posted with Loob.  You need the present force of the present perfect, to match the present of the main clause.
> 
> Like Loob, I think we've told you this already.



Then I guess that although " If *you've* finally decided to learn English, then you should be practicing as much as you can by now"  works fine, it is not a conditional sentence at all.


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## Loob

It's a matter of terminology, El10 - I would see it as a conditional, but (if I've understood him correctly) TT wouldn't.


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## Thomas Tompion

Exactly, Loob.  I agree entirely.  That sequence of tenses and adverbials almost forces us to understand the _if_ as meaning _given that_, and that means we are dealing with a causal statement rather than a conditional.


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## El10

Ok, thank you very much Loob, Thomas and everyone else. In conclusion, the sentence can be corrected by replacing the simple past "decided" with the present perfect "I have decided," but it can't be classified as a conditional sentence since the combination of tenses used is not very common.


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## wandle

El10 said:


> In conclusion, the sentence can be corrected by replacing the simple past "decided" with the present perfect "I have decided," but it can't be classified as a conditional sentence since the combination of tenses used is not very common.


I am afraid that is not a valid conclusion. In its corrected form, the sentence _ 'If you have finally decided to learn English, then you should now be practising as much as you can'_, is not only a valid sentence, it is a valid conditional as well: namely, a present open conditional.


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## Loob

Not open, wandle - closed....

(Oh gosh - I've just broken my "never debate with wandle" rule....)


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## wandle

Thomas Tompion said:


> That sequence of tenses and adverbials almost forces us to understand the _if_ as meaning _given that_,


 In regard to the sentence_ 'If you have finally decided to learn English, then you should now be practising as much as you can' _, that comment seems to me an understatement.  The conjunction 'if' here certainly has the meaning 'given that': and as we have seen, the OED defines this usage of 'if' as a conditional. That is a matter of syntax. The syntactical status of the 'if' clause and of the sentence is conditional.


> and that means we are dealing with a causal statement rather than a conditional.


 Here I take leave to differ. The sense of 'given that' is concessive: it means 'admitting that', 'in view of the fact that':  this is not the same as 'because'. This question is one of semantics. 
 The semantic meaning of that conditional clause is concessive, not causal.


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## wandle

Loob said:


> Not open, wandle - closed...


Well, at least we agree that it is a conditional.

It has to be open, though, because it does not deny or cast doubt on the truth of the idea expressed: it is open to the idea being true.
A closed condition is one which closes the door fully or partly on the truth of the idea (that is, denies it or casts doubt on it).


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## wandle

Please compare the following statement on the page Guide to Grammar and Writing:


> First conditional
> *a. Nature:* Open condition, what is said in the condition is possible.


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## wandle

For clarity, I would like to add a basic table to illustrate the six-fold classification of conditionals mentioned in post 17.
By 'conditionals' I mean sentences correctly formed from an 'if' clause (protasis) and a main clause (apodosis).



.*  Open *(truth of 'if'-clause not doubted)
*Closed *(truth of 'if'-clause doubted or denied)
*Past*
(A)  _If he said that, he was making a mistake._
(B)  _If he had said that, he would have been making a mistake._ *(3)*
*Present*
(C)  _If he is saying that, he is making a mistake._
(D)  _If he were saying that, he would be making a mistake._
*Future*
(E)  _If he says that, he will be making a mistake_. *(1)*
(F)  _If he said that, he would be making a mistake._ *(2)*



As mentioned, that is only a basic table to illustrate the six fundamental syntactic types. It does not include all the various ways each of these types may be expressed.
For example, it certainly does not mean that the main verb must always be a continuous form!

I have marked the traditional types 1, 2 and 3 in red. The reason why these three are often the only ones that are taught is that they are the most frequent in use.
That does not mean that they are the only types!

As regards the revised topic sentence, _'If you have finally decided to learn English, then you should now be practising as much as you can', _that can only be classified in this scheme as (C) present open, because the main verb is in the present tense and the verb in the conditional clause is in the present perfect tense. It is clearly expressing a present meaning and it does not cast doubt on the truth of the 'if'-clause.

As for 'zero conditionals', such as '_If you heat water to 100 degrees, it boils_'  they come under (C) present open: but that of course does not mean that all present open conditionals are 'zero conditionals'. In other words, they are not a distinct syntactic type: they are limited to type (C), but are otherwise distinct only in semantic terms.

<Edited by Jann at Wandle's request to fix a problem with table formatting.>


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## boozer

JustKate said:


> "If you finally decided to learn English, you should be practicing" doesn't work in AmE either. It needs to be "If you have finally..." I've tried to come up with a context in which the "If you finally" version works, and I can't.


Thank you for letting me know this, Kate.  I knew that AE tends to use the past simple more... frequently and loosely and in a way I find unpredictable at times, so I thought an AE speaker might be more comfortable with the original example. I am glad I was wrong, actually. Makes English more predictable from my perspective.


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## Thomas Tompion

JustKate said:


> "If you finally decided to learn English, you should be practicing" doesn't work in AmE either. It needs to be "If you have finally..." I've tried to come up with a context in which the "If you finally" version works, and I can't.


Yes, I agree with Boozer: thank you Kate.

Can you be saying that you can't accept _If you finally have decided_? or is it just the_ If you finally + simple past_ which doesn't work?

On a different issue, I'm wondering whether it's worth pointing out that it seems to be part of the standard _ex cathedra_ manner to fail to realize that we can only show something to be true when it is actually true.  Showing is like knowing, and remembering, in this regard.


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## wandle

Thomas Tompion said:


> On a different issue, I'm wondering whether it's worth pointing out that it seems to be part of the standard _ex cathedra_ manner to fail to realize that we can only show something to be true when it is actually true.  Showing is like knowing, and remembering, in this regard.


I wonder what this is meant to refer to. It seems rather off-topic, if I may say so. The point about the verb 'show' is true only when it is used to introduce a propositional statement, but it has not been used like that in this thread.

For example, none of the _ex cathedra_ statements in posts 14 or 31 makes use of it. In fact, the verb 'show' does not appear anywhere at all in the thread prior to post 40.


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