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Third Conditional

Introduction

We use the third conditional to describe unreal situations in the past and the imagined results. Both the situation and the result exist in the past; the situation did not happen so the result is impossible:

If I had woken up earlier, I wouldn’t have missed the train.

"If I had woken up earlier" is the unreal situation.

"I wouldn’t have missed the train" is the imagined result.

The real situation and result: I didn’t wake up earlier so I missed the train.

Examples:

If she hadn't got the job, she would have been very disappointed.

The real situation and result: she got the job so she wasn’t disappointed.

If they had known about the problems with the trains, they would have driven.

The real situation and result: they didn’t know about the problems with the trains so they didn’t drive.

Would I have got sick if I hadn’t eaten the fish?

The real situation and result: I ate the fish. Was that why I got sick?

Form

We form the third conditional with a conditional clause and a main clause:

Conditional clause: "if" + past perfect

Main clause: "would have" + past participle

The order of the clauses does not matter: the meaning is the same.

If we put the conditional clause before the main clause, we use a comma:

Table 6

Table 6

Conditional clause

Main clause

"If" + past perfect + comma

"would have" + past participle

If I’d woken up earlier,

I wouldn’t have missed the train.

If she hadn’t got the job,

she would have been very disappointed.

If they had known about the problems with the trains,

they would have driven instead.

If I hadn’t eaten the fish,

would I have got sick?

There are no rows in this table

⁠

We do not use a comma if we put the main clause before the conditional clause:

Table 7

Table 7

Main clause

Conditional clause

"would have" + past participle

"if" + past perfect

I wouldn’t have missed the train

if I had woken up earlier.

She would have been very disappointed

if she hadn’t got the job.

They would have driven

if they had known about the problems with the trains.

Would I have got sick

if I hadn’t eaten the fish?

There are no rows in this table

⁠

We can contract the subject pronoun and "would": "I’d" / "you’d" / "we’d" / "they’d" / "she’d" / "he’d" / "it’d"

We can contract "would" and "have": would’ve

We can use the past perfect continuous in the conditional clause:

If I’d been looking more carefully, I would have noticed the mistake.

I didn’t notice the mistake because I wasn’t looking carefully enough.

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