Confident Business English

86. How To Use the 3rd Conditional In Business

Episode Notes

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The 3rd conditional. The worst of them all! The one everybody loves to hate. Well, that's try and change that. See the conditionals as a way to express yourself at a higher level. If you stop and notice, we use the conditionals a lot, including at work.

When we are talking about what we would have done differently, what we could have done if we had more time or more budget and how we are going to use this learning in future work and projects.

In this episode I introduce the conditional and go through an example. Here is the text and the sentences I use in the podcast. This is a more difficult one so you might need help to follow it. 

Text

Sony launched its cassette recording device known as Betamax in the mid 1970s. It lost the battle for market share to JVC’s VHS technology because other products were cheaper, but Sony didn’t stop making Betamax tapes until 2016, long after it was relevant to most of us, who didn’t even realize it was still in production.

Sentences

If we'd had time, we would have been able to do it.

If Sony had stopped making tapes sooner, they would've saved money

If Sony had had better marketing, they would've sold more

If Sony hadn’t lost market share, they would've been more successful

If Sony’s products had been cheaper, they would've sold more