Use a mixed conditional when the condition and the result are at different times. Most often it's a different past with a result now: If I had taken that job, I would be rich now. Form: if + Past Perfect, would + base verb.
If I had taken that job, I would be rich now.
The imagined path leaves the real one in the past but reaches NOW: a different past, so a different present.
| Past → now | if + Past Perfect, would + base verb: If I had taken the job, I would be rich now. |
|---|---|
| Always → past | if + Past Simple, would have + participle: If I spoke French, I would have understood the film. |
| Clues | now, today, still in the result; yesterday, last year, then in the if-part |
If I hadn't missed the flight, I'd be in Rome now.
The past didn't happen that way, so the present isn't that way either.
If I spoke French, I would have understood the film.
A situation that's always been true (I don't speak French) explains a past result.
If she weren't so kind, she wouldn't have helped us.
Who someone is, in general, explains something they did.
Common expressions worth learning as they are.
If I had saved more, I _____ able to buy a car now.
From always true to an imagined past.
Paste an email or an essay. Clarigram marks the mistakes you actually make, shows the rule behind each one as a picture, and builds your practice from them.
Yes, in speech, more than textbooks suggest. Listen for now or still in the result, or a past time word in the if-part.
Ask when each part is. Past condition, past result: third conditional. Past condition, present result: mixed. Present condition, present result: second.