Third conditional use

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Third Conditional: no possibility The first conditional and second conditionals talk about the future. With the third conditional we talk about the past. We talk about a condition in the past that didnot happen. That is why there is no possibility for this condition. The third conditional is also like a dream, but with no possibility of the dream coming true.

Last week you bought a lottery ticket. But you did not win. :-(

conditionresult Past PerfectWOULD HAVE + Past ParticipleIfI had won the lotteryI would have bought a car.

Notice that we are thinking about an impossible past condition. You did not win the lottery. So the condition was not true, and that particular condition can never be true because it is finished. We use the past perfect tense to talk about the impossible past condition. We use WOULD HAVE + past participle to talk about the impossible past result. The important thing about the third conditional is that both the condition and result are impossible now.

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