FIRST CONDITIONAL GRAMMAR

First Conditional

for real possibility

If I win the lottery, I will buy a car.

We are talking about the future. We are thinking about a particular condition or situation in the future, and the result of this condition. There is a real possibility that this condition will happen. For example, it is morning. You are at home. You plan to play tennis this afternoon. But there are some clouds in the sky. Imagine that it rains. What will you do?

if	condition	result
	Present Simple	will + base verb
If	it rains,	I will stay at home.

Notice that we are thinking about a future condition. It is not raining yet. But the sky is cloudy and you think that it could rain. We use the Present Simple tense to talk about the possible future condition. We use will + base verb to talk about the possible future result. The important thing about the first conditional is that there is a real possibility that the condition will happen.

Here are some more examples (do you remember the two basic structures: [ifcondition result] and [result if condition]?):

if	condition	result
	Present Simple	will + base verb
If	I see Mary,	I will tell her.
If	Tara is free tomorrow,	he will invite her.
If	they do not pass their exam,	their teacher will be sad.
If	it rains tomorrow,	will you stay at home?
If	it rains tomorrow,	what will you do?

result	if	condition
will + base verb		Present Simple
I will tell Mary	if	I see her.
He will invite Tara	if	she is free tomorrow.
Their teacher will be sad	if	they do not pass their exam.
Will you stay at home	if	it rains tomorrow?
What will you do	if	it rains tomorrow?