Transcript of the video

If I had wanted to, I would have become a baker.

No, it's a fault. If I had wanted to, I would have become a baker.

Hello everyone. I hope you're all well. I'm back today for another French video.

Today, we're going to look at a very common mistake in French. It's not just a mistake made by people learning French, or by non-native speakers.

Many French people also make this mistake.

Often, it can be children or people who don't pay much attention to the way they speak, who don't look after the French they speak very well, and if, for example, you watch reality TV shows in French, you hear this mistake quite often.

I'll start by putting an excerpt where you can hear the mistake.

Are you a colonel or not? Then you'll just have to obey! Ohh but... if I'd known, I wouldn't have come.

I don't know if you know this movie. It's called War of the Buttons. It's a cult film in France, adapted from a book. It's a film from the 60s. The child says "If I'd known, I wouldn't have come".

Obviously, in this case, the mistake is made intentionally, on purpose. That's why this line from the film, this phrase from the film, has become so cult.

Many people know this line from the movies. The mistake a lot of people make is putting the conditional, a verb conjugated in the conditional after an if.

In reality, the if is the conjunction "if" that already marks the condition.

So, we're not going to double the condition, repeat it twice using a conditional verb.

If I'd wanted to, I'd have become a baker. No, that's a mistake. If I had wanted to, I would have become a baker.

In French, there's a very simple rule that children are taught when they start speaking or writing.

The rule is "ifs don't like grapes".

And often, even when adults make this mistake, they're told over and over again, "be careful, si's don't like grapes".

Or you can say if you want to remember in a more graphic way...

Saws don't like stingrays. Fish. This is a slightly more graphic way of remembering the rule.

I'll give you examples of mistakes and what you should say. And then we'll go over the overall grammar point with the tenses and conjugations you need to use.

The beginning of the sentence is where the condition is. If I had wanted.

And the second part, I would have become a baker. So the first part is the condition and the second part is the hypothesis. It's potentially, maybe what would have happened.

I'll give you more examples with the mistakes. Maybe you've already heard similar ones. If you could come, that would be nice. No.

I must say if you could come, it would be nice.

If he'd cooked the meal, I'd have had time to watch TV. No.

If he'd cooked the meal, I'd have had time to watch TV.

The conditional is not used in the first part of the sentence.

So, as I said, it is already marked by the if.

But we will find the conditional in the second part of the sentence.

If I'd eaten my birthday cake by myself, I'd have been sick. No.

If I'd eaten my birthday cake on my own, I'd have been sick. On the other hand, if you don't put the if in the sentence, you can of course use the conditional in the first part of the sentence to mark the condition.

Let me give you an example.

If I had eaten my birthday cake alone, I would have been sick. On the other hand, you can say "I would have eaten my birthday cake alone, I would have been sick".

You see, there's no if, so the sentence is correct.

Now let's move on to the small overall grammar point so that you can remember which tenses you can use after the if and which tenses you can use in the second part of the sentence.

After the if you can first use the present tense.

If you want to go to the sea, you can take my car.

We have present tense and in the second part of the sentence, we can also use present tense or we can use simple future tense.

Here's an example. If I'm late, he'll wait for me.

The second tense you can use after if is the imperfect.

If I had a dog. In the first part of the sentence, we use the imperfect tense, and in the second, we'll use the present conditional because there's a direct link with the present.

If I had a dog, I'd be happier.

So first the imperfect and then the present conditional.

The third tense you can use after if is the plus-que-parfait.

It sounds very much like the imperfect, but it's compound.

In this case, if you use the past perfect in the first part of the sentence, in the second part, you can use either the present or the past conditional.

Here are two examples. The first one with the conditional present in the second part of the sentence.

If I'd wanted to, I'd be a singer today.

In the first part of the sentence, we have the past perfect and in the second part, we have the present conditional because there's a direct link with the present.

Today, I'd be a singer.

Second example where we have the past perfect in the first part of the sentence and the past conditional in the second.

I celebrated my birthday last week and if I had eaten all my birthday cake alone, I would have been sick.

A hypothesis is given.

There is a condition and an assumption of what could have happened last week, so in the past.

That's it for today.

I hope you enjoyed this video and this grammar point.

Let me know in the comments if you happen to make this mistake, which I've already told you is very common in French.

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I'll see you very, very soon.