Learn English – Past conditional statements

conditionalsdifferencesmodal-verbssubjunctive-mood

What is the difference between the following two statements?

If I went home for dinner, I took a glass of soft drink.

If I went home for dinner, I would take a glass of soft drink.

Are both of them correct? If not, why can't we use the second one? And if I say: "Would both of them be correct?" instead of "Are both of them correct?", which one would sound more natural?

Best Answer

If I went home for dinner, I’d have a soft drink is an example of the Second Conditional (I’ve changed the wording slightly to make the English sound more natural). The Second Conditional is used for a situation when the action envisaged in the if clause is unlikely. It is normally used to say what might happen now or in the fairly near future. However, the construction could also be used by a speaker describing something in the past, particularly in some kind of narrative. Used this way, it suggests that on those occasions on which the speaker went home for dinner in the past he was in the habit of having a soft drink. If I went home for dinner, I had a soft drink can be used in the same way (but it cannot be used as an alternative to the normal use of the Second Conditional).

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