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Hi all,

Wandered if any of you kind folk would help me out here, I'm just polishing off my TEFL course and I'm looking to start up my CELTA in the new year before I go on to get any professional TEFL experience and I have so say I'm rather enjoying it, however I have hit a small snag here with regards to conditionals

I think I have largely grasped the difference and requirements for the first, second and third conditions (real/likely, hypothetical, impossible) but the phrase below has me outdone me for the moment, the textbook I am using claims that in this instance this conditional works outside of the standard rules of first, second and third but I can't figure out why:


"If you finish before time, hand your papers in and go"

...as far as I can make out it's of the First conditional, as it's a likely reality using no past participles. Have I gotten the wrong end of the metaphorical stick?

No Gazjin,

It's not the wrong end. It's that the whole system of Conditionals is erroneous. Personally, I don't see a reason to count them at all. A conditional clause has a very simple form - just the one which is the subordinate clause in your example (the main is Imperative Mood). It can be the whole sentence as well, for example: "If he isn't here anymore." The latter would mean "Maybe he has left the place."

I say it, and I say it again that the whole system is erroneous.

Regards,

Slava