English · Chapter 5 · Lesson 8 · Grammar primer
Conditional sentences
How English talks about 'if' - the zero, first, second and third conditionals, and which one to reach for when.
The short version
Will and would never live in the if-clause
This is the big one. The condition takes a present or past tense and the result clause carries will or would. The same rule blocks the third-conditional version: If I would have known is never right, because the condition needs the past perfect instead.
If I see him, I'll tell him.
One comma rule, and examiners notice it
When the if-clause comes first, put a comma between the two halves. When the if-clause comes second, use no comma at all. That is the whole punctuation rule for conditionals, it is easy, and it is one of the few comma rules in English that is not a matter of taste.
I will stay home if it rains.
That's the gist. The full article goes deeper - more examples, the edge cases, the why - and the practice below scores like a vocabulary session and earns the same XP.
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