B2 — upper-intermediateThe future tense and the conditional

Conditional sentences

Lesson opening

This is the first part of the lesson. The rest, the exercises and the reviews are in the app.

Conditional sentences: three kinds of “if” for every occasion

“If I have time, I’ll come.” “If I had time, I’d come.” “If I had known, I would have come.” Three sentences, three different attitudes to reality: the first condition can easily come true, the second is only imagined, the third is already missed, over and done with. English textbooks call them the first, second and third conditionals. Serbian draws the same three distinctions, but it builds them differently, and one of the differences is genuinely treacherous: the Serbian “if” about a past that did not happen is not ako at all.

You already have the building materials. You learned the conditional (bih/bi + participle) in the lesson “Conditional I”, Future II (budem + participle) in “Future II (exact future)”, and the Serbian logic of the comma in “Commas in clauses”. Here we assemble three types of condition from these parts and learn to choose the conjunction: ako, kad or da.

Type I. The real condition: ako + present or Future II

The most frequent and simplest type: things that may well happen. The condition is introduced by ako “if”, and its verb is in the present or in Future II (budem + participle). The consequence is a future, an imperative or a present:

Which form goes in the condition depends on the verb’s aspect, just as after kad “when” (the lesson “Future II (exact future)”). A perfective verb about the future stands in the present: ako stigneš “if you make it”, ako dođeš “if you come”. An imperfective verb and biti about the future usually take Future II: ako budeš imao vremena “if you have time”, ako budeš slobodan “if you’re free”. The present of an imperfective verb speaks of what is true now or every time: Ako imaš vremena, dođi (you have time right now). Future II of a perfective verb is also correct (ako budeš stigao), but in conversation ako stigneš is commoner. English translates all of these with a plain present.

Watch out

Typical mistakes of English speakers, 1: ću after ako. You have learned that the future is ću/ćeš + verb, and the condition is plainly about the future, so the hand writes “*ako ćeš imati vremena”. Why it is wrong: in a condition about a future event Serbian does not use Future I with ću/ćeš, just as after kad “when”; Future I stays in the main clause. The correct form: a perfective verb in the present (Ako stigneš, javi se), an imperfective verb or biti in Future II (Ako budeš imao vremena, javi se). Here English is on your side: it says “if you have time”, not “if you will have time”. And where English does say “if you will”, meaning “if you are willing” or “if you intend to”, Serbian can say ako ćeš too: colloquial Ako ćeš da ideš, idi sada “If you’re going to go, go now”, and the phrase ako ćemo iskreno “to be honest”.

Deeper semantics

The real condition: a present that looks into the future

Why does a Serbian real condition about the future stand in the present tense? Because ako by itself already places the action in the realm of the “not yet true, but possible”, and there is no need to repeat that with a future tense: the present form takes over the role of the future. Ako stigneš means “if you make it” (some time ahead), not “if you are making it”: the perfective stići in the present reads as future precisely because the action is a single point and still lies ahead.

English does exactly the same thing: “if it rains tomorrow”, “when you arrive”, never “*if it will rain tomorrow”. Latin went a step further and used its future perfect in such clauses (si venero, literally “if I shall have come”), which is the nearest relative of Serbian Future II. So keep this marker: in a condition about the future a Serbian verb looks forward in the form of the present (or of Future II with budem), and ću/ćeš are left for the main clause. The finer points of present vs Future II are in the lesson “Future II (exact future)”.

Type II. The potential condition: kad bi + conditional

The second type is about the imagined but in principle thinkable: “if I had the time, I’d go”. Here both halves carry the conditional. The condition is introduced by kad bi (less often ako bi) “if … would”, the consequence is a conditional (bih/bi + participle). And, as you know from the lesson “Conditional I”, the would-word changes for person here:

Notice that the would-clitic (bih, bi: a short unstressed word that never comes first in a sentence) appears twice, in the condition (kad bih) and in the consequence (putovao bih), and each one agrees with its own person (bih for “I”, bi for “he”). This is where English leads you astray. The English second conditional puts “would” in the main clause only and uses a past form in the if-clause: “if I had time, I would travel”. Copy that pattern and you get “*Kad imam vremena, putovao bih”, with the if-clause left bare. Serbian wants the conditional in both halves, and conjugated: kad bih (I), kad bi (you singular, he, she), kad bismo (we), kad biste (you plural or polite). And do not drop the -h in the first person; the lesson “Conditional I” warned you about that.

Cheat sheet

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Conditional sentences: three kinds of “if”

Condition (if-clause with ako/kad/da) + consequence (main clause). Three types by how real the condition is. Comma: condition first, comma (Ako možeš, dođi); condition second, usually none (Dođi ako možeš).

The three types at a glance

Examples

Type	Conjunction	Condition → consequence	Model
real (can come true)	ako; formal ukoliko, u slučaju da	present / Future II → future, imperative	Ako stigneš, idemo.
potential (imagined)	kad bi, ako bi	conditional → conditional	Kad bih mogao, došao bih.
unreal (untrue now, unfulfilled)	da	present or perfect → conditional	Da sam znao, došao bih.

Type I. Real: ako + present / Future II

Perfective verb about the future: present (ako stigneš, ako dođeš). Imperfective and biti: usually Future II (ako budeš imao vremena, ako budeš slobodan). Imperfective present: true now. The main clause sets the shade:

Examples

Main clause	Shade	Example
future	promise	Ako budeš gladan, napraviću ti sendvič.
imperative	advice	Ako si gladan, uzmi nešto iz frižidera.
present	rule	Ako pada kiša, ne idemo napolje.
modal verb	necessity	Ako hoćeš da uspeš, moraš da radiš.

Type II. Potential: kad bi + conditional

The would-clitic comes twice (English: main clause only) and changes for person: kad bih (I), kad bi (you singular, he, she), kad bismo (we), kad biste (you plural). Keep the -h.
kad bi: the usual one; ako bi: the same, less common: Ako bi mogao, pomogao bi. If he could, he would help.
kad + would-clitic is usually a condition; a bare kad with the present (kad dođe) means “when”.

Type III. Unreal: da + perfect or present

Past: perfect; now: present; would-clitic only in the consequence. Speech: Conditional I (došao bih, “would have come”); bookish: Conditional II (bio bih došao). Da sam na tvom mestu “if I were” vs da sam bio na tvom mestu “if I had been”.