mafto
Junior Member
- Joined
- Mar 14, 2011
- Member Type
- Student or Learner
- Native Language
- Slovak
- Home Country
- Slovak Republic
- Current Location
- Slovak Republic
Hello all,
So, imagine a situation concerning filling in a questionnaire. There are some answer choices in question no. 1 and if you choose 'yes', you will be supposed to answer question no. 2. If you choose 'I don't know', you can skip question no. 2.
Now let's look at some conditional sentences about this situation.
Present real conditional - If I choose 'yes', I will be asked to answer the second question, too.
Present hypothetical conditional (because, for example, I want to express that I wouldn't choose 'yes' because that would be totally untrue for me) - If I chose 'yes', I would be asked to answer....
Past hypothetical conditional - If I had chosen 'yes', I would have been asked to answer...
But I'd like to know how about past real conditional -
If a respondent ........ 'yes', they....
I'm a bit confused about this. I've tried to google out something but as for 'past real conditional' I found information that it is used to describe things that used to be and have changed since then. E.g. 'If we needed to make a call, we used to use a pay phone.'
But this sentence of mine about the respondent having answered 'yes' is not about what used to be, but about what happened only one time. On the other hand, it is not either an unreal conditional because I know that some of the respondents really chose 'yes'. So what should a sentence for it look like? Please, help me. You can also write other example sentences about past real conditional, if you can think of any.
Thank you very much
So, imagine a situation concerning filling in a questionnaire. There are some answer choices in question no. 1 and if you choose 'yes', you will be supposed to answer question no. 2. If you choose 'I don't know', you can skip question no. 2.
Now let's look at some conditional sentences about this situation.
Present real conditional - If I choose 'yes', I will be asked to answer the second question, too.
Present hypothetical conditional (because, for example, I want to express that I wouldn't choose 'yes' because that would be totally untrue for me) - If I chose 'yes', I would be asked to answer....
Past hypothetical conditional - If I had chosen 'yes', I would have been asked to answer...
But I'd like to know how about past real conditional -
If a respondent ........ 'yes', they....
I'm a bit confused about this. I've tried to google out something but as for 'past real conditional' I found information that it is used to describe things that used to be and have changed since then. E.g. 'If we needed to make a call, we used to use a pay phone.'
But this sentence of mine about the respondent having answered 'yes' is not about what used to be, but about what happened only one time. On the other hand, it is not either an unreal conditional because I know that some of the respondents really chose 'yes'. So what should a sentence for it look like? Please, help me. You can also write other example sentences about past real conditional, if you can think of any.
Thank you very much