English Boost Level Up Your Skills | English Podcast Conversation | Episode 30

[Music] hello English Learners welcome back to another great lesson here at English pod my name is Marco and my name is Katherine so Marco today we've got a little bit of an unusual lesson because we're talking about hypothetical situations right we're talking about a Unreal situation or something that may happen or may not happen okay so you're going to hear all about this in today's dialogue we're going to hear it a couple of times when we come back we'll be breaking it down for you so you know all about these great phrases and how to

talk about not real situations with your friends okay next question if Eric asked you out on a date what would you say duh I would say yes Eric is the most popular kid in school okay my turn what would you do if you won the lottery let's see if I won the lottery I would buy two tickets for a trips around the world if you buy me a ticket I'll go with you for sure my dad would freak out if I even mention a trip like that all right this is a good one what would

your mom say if you told her that you're going to get married if I told her that she would faint and have me committed all right so I think that was clear and well a very common situation two teenage girls talking to each other about you know boys and what would you do and guys do this too so don't just put this on the girls okay I don't think we do it like this though no but it's actually a very popular game in the car to play the wh if game the wh if game exactly

and that's exactly the topic that we want to talk about today is the structure what if which is actually called a conditional all right it's a conditional because the results the uh the thing that happens depends on something else exactly so let's uh let's actually take a look at the words in today's language takeaway before we talk about all this grammar stuff language takeaway okay so we'll start out with some basic words um well you know they were talking about guys and she said if Eric asked you out uhuh right so to ask somebody out

okay so this might be a little bit strange because you think okay to ask is to ask a question but to ask out it's a fixed phrase it's something you say these two words go together right so I want to ask someone out it means I want to invite someone on a date on a romantic date usually so yeah I want to ask him out to dinner or he asked me out to the movies mhm now if I didn't want to ask somebody out on a romantic date what would what verb would you use I'd

say you could invite someone out uh but then again it's always a little bit uh well you can say invite for someone if you're going to ask them on a date too so I'd say to ask out is always romantic mhm and to invite can be romantic or just friends okay so to ask somebody out now uh they were talking about other situ situations maybe they would go on a trip or something and she said my dad would freak out this is a great phrase and this is something that I used a lot when I

was a teenager the word freak out freak out so the verb to freak out means to be really angry or obset or you know it could be a good thing or a bad thing but usually when we're talking about our parents it's a bad thing it's a bad thing so they get angry they start yelling at you yeah so out Freak Out means like overreact all right and uh the last word that we have on language takeaway today is uh committed well let's look at the whole phrase he says she would have me committed so

this is actually being done to someone mhm now we did look at this word before but basically for for marriage right to to commit to somebody to promise yeah but to have someone committed means that you're going to send them away to maybe a mental institution exactly so this means they have psychological problem s and someone else sends them to the hospital because they can't send themselves exactly so it's always used to have someone committed right right cuz it's it's being done to them they don't want it to happen it's involuntary okay so she had

him committed my mom's going to have me committed if I keep working 20 hours a day exactly so that's the way you use it and so now you have another way of using this verb but now I think we should listen to this dialogue again we're going to slow it down a little bit and then we'll come back and look at this grammar Focus that we want to talk about okay next question if Eric asked you out on a date what would you say duh I would say yes Eric is the most popular kid in

school okay my turn what would you do if you won the lottery let's see if I won the lottery I would buy two tickets for a trip around the world if you buy me a ticket I will go with you for sure my dad would freak out if I even mention a trip like that all right this is a good one what would your mom say if you told her you were going to get married if I told her that she would faint and have me committed all right so uh we understood all the vocab

now now let's take a look at these unreal situations and what we were saying the what if game right so I think it's important to push these into two different categories right we have one kind where it's very unrealistic it's probably not going to happen in that kind of situation and the other one is a situation that could very well happen something that's probably very common okay so the first one we're going to talk about is very unrealistic situations things that probably won't happen Okay so let's take a look at an example that we found

in the dialog the most common one and I think everybody gets asked this question is if you won the lottery what would you do okay if you won the lottery so this is a situation that's very uncommon right not many people win the lottery so we have to say if you won the lottery so we use this this this verb in the past tense if you won the lottery if this happened what would you do right so Katherine if you won the lottery what would you do if I won the lottery I would buy a

boat and sail around the world with my friends all right so another example again using the same structure right the verb in the simple past tense we would say if you were stuck on an island with one other person who would that be all right so if you were stuck on a desert island with one person who would that person be so Marco I'm going to ask you who would it be uh I think it would be an engineer or a scientist that could probably get me off the item what about your girlfriend well you

know that's the point if I can get to her quicker okay uh I would say maybe kind of romantic but kind of not so that's the first situation we've got these situations like being stuck on an island winning the lottery these are very unlikely but what about the other kind uh but before we move on to that uh you notice that we used the verb was we didn't say if I was on an island I said if I were right mhm or if you were so this is the way that you use it in these

conditionals if I were you or if you were president of the United States yeah this is a rule so this is a grammar rule we're not going to describe why it happens because it's very very complicated and you can look it up on our site but we're going to describe how to use it that's the most important so we can say for example Marco if I were you I would dye my hair red why I don't know I think it would look cool I don't think so so if I were you I would or if

you were me what would you do mhm exactly so we always use it like this right if you're going to use this conditional always use were for the subject never was right so you can tell this very very big grammar issue a lot of English speakers make this mistake very many so but now you know that you shouldn't make this mistake and you can speak properly all right so now that we've seen these uh semi unreal situations let's move on to something that a little bit more probable that it may happen right so we've got

these uh these situations that are common or likely um for example in this lesson we hear I will go with you for sure so this is if you buy me a ticket to travel of course I will go with you so if you buy this is in the present tense if you buy then I will right right so now you notice the difference the verb is in the present and then we use instead of would we use will so again I can say if it rains tomorrow I will stay home and watch TV all day

okay so think about this we before we talked about going to desert islands now we're talking about rain and the weather they're very very different the rain is is you know is very common so we can say if it rains tomorrow I will need an umbrella mhm what about this if we have lunch tomorrow what will we eat okay so we have lunch pretty much every day right yeah pretty much so again it's a it's a situation that is very probable so if uh we have lunch tomorrow uh we will probably eat I don't know

pasta I think I'm feel like pasta tomor pasta some noodles yeah all right so Marco let's take another listen to some of these phrases and try and figure out while you're listening which kind of conditional it is first or the second example one if it's sunny today we will go to the park example two I would get a divorce if I were you example three Mary will be very sad if Joe leaves example four we wouldn't be so late if Nick drove faster very good so we heard different examples and the first conditional is the

one that we mentioned is very probable and the second conditional is the one that's not so probable so so they're very easy to distinguish you don't really need to know the names just know how to use them right exactly and so just remember if you were me what would you do we've got these kind of pairs these words that go together and the other one is more common it's if we if it rains tomorrow I will bring an umbrella mhm perfect so why don't we listen to this uh dialogue for the last time just to

kind of reinforce everything and then we'll come back and talk a little bit more okay next question if Eric asked you out on a date what would you say duh I would say yes Eric is the most popular kid in school okay my turn what would you do if you won the lottery let's see if I won the lottery I would buy two tickets for trip around the world if you buy me a ticket I'll go with you for sure my dad would freak out if I even mention a trip like that all right this

is a good one what would your mom say if you told her that you're going to get married if I told her that she would faint and have me committed so Marco if we talk any more about grammar someone's going to have to have me committed it is a little bit difficult to talk about grammar especially on a podcast cuz it's such a difficult topic and it's also kind of heavy right it is but I'll tell you this these are very very common phrases people use these all the time we talk we talk in hypotheticals

very often so um if you're asking for advice for example or if you're just playing a game in the car uh you're going to encounter these and it's very important to be able to know how to use them mhm so and this is what we want to see now please come to our website at englishpod do.com and you have a million questions you have a million hypotheticals that you can leave on our website so let us know ask us the craziest funniest weirdest questions that you can right exactly and if you have questions about the

stuff that we've been talking about you're not really clear on some things just ask us because we're happy to answer your questions and give more examples on the website all right so we'll see you guys there and uh until next time bye [Music] everyone the English pod audio review listen to the meaning then say the vocabulary word to be in the place of someone be in your shoes to lose one's nerve become suddenly anxious freak out an instance of spending the night as a guest at another's home sleepover to request a date ask someone out

suppositional uncertain hypothetical put in a mental hospital commit rumor or talk of a personal Sensational or intimate nature gossip to join in marriage get married to have dream like musings or fantasies while awake Daydream a romantic meeting date let's try that faster suppositional uncertain hypothetical to join in marriage get married rumor or talk of a personal Sensational or intimate nature gossip to have dream like musings or fantasies while awake Daydream to be in the place of someone be in your shoes put in a mental hospital Hospital commit a romantic meeting date an instance of spending

the night as a guest at another's home sleepover to request a date ask someone out to lose one's nerve become suddenly anxious freak out now say the word and hear it in a sentence ask someone out when asking someone out choose your moment carefully and practice what you might say in advance so that you don't appear tongue tied ask someone out I heard you ask your new neighbor out on a date ask someone out I really want to ask Jeff out but what if he says no freak out oh my gosh I'm going to meet

Justin Timberlake I'm totally freaking out freak out why did you freak out when I told you I'd be late for dinner freak out don't freak out we can solve this problem in 5 minutes commit the judge had him committed to a mental institution commit if you get committed to an asylum can you eventually get out commit he was committed to 50 hours of community service for his crimes if I won a million dollars I would buy you a diamond ring we wouldn't be so late if Nick drove faster I would get a divorce if I

were you if it's sunny today we will go to the park if you study hard you will pass the test Mary will be very sad if leaves [Music]