past unreal conditional

I had another English class today and we were talking about the unreal past conditional. Most of my classmates and I have a lot of trouble with this topic. The teacher laughed every time we made a mistake and that doesn't help us.

If I had known that the teacher was not enough good, I would have chosen another time.

Hello James,

The unreal past conditional (or 3rd conditional) is not so complicated,  the basic rules are the same as the other conditionals. There are 2 parts - the condition (if clause) and the result. With the 3rd conditional everything is hypothetical because it is in the past and you can't change the past. Your last sentence shows that you understand the structure well. You did not know that the teacher was not good enough, so you didn't choose another time.

The trickiest thing some students find is  remembering to keep the clauses separate. As you probably know you can have the condition clause first or the result clause. The problems star to occur when you put the result clause first. Just remember that the past perfect always goes with if, the result clause is always would + have + past participle. (Sometimes you can use othermodal verbs in place of 'would'.)

Hope this helps.

past unreal conditional

I had another English class today and we were talking about the past unreal conditional. most of my classmates and I have a lot of troubles with this topic. The teacher laughs every time we make a mistake and that doesn't help us.

If I had known that the teacher was not good, I would have chosen another one.