Before learning the First Conditional, students should understand the following:

🔹 1. Present Simple tense:
They need to recognize and form the present simple correctly (especially 3rd person “s”) for use in conditional clauses.
Examples:

• If it rains...

• Unless she studies...
  
  

🔹 2. Future Simple with will:
Students must know how to form the future simple with will for predictions or results.
Examples:

• I will go.

• She won’t come.
  
  

🔹 3. Basic sentence structure (subject + verb):
They must be able to build affirmative, negative, and interrogative sentences.

🔹 4. Modal verbs (especially might):
Students should understand that might expresses possibility and that it is followed by the base form of the verb.
Example:

• It might rain.
  
  

🔹 5. Basic adverbs of probability:
Students should recognize common adverbs like probably, definitely, maybe, and their meaning in terms of certainty.

The First Conditional is used to talk about possible future situations and their likely results.

💡 Structure:

If + subj + present simple, subj + will + base verb

🧩 Affirmative form:

• If I study, I will pass the test.

• If it rains, we will stay home.
  
  

❌ Negative form:

There are two ways to make a First Conditional sentence negative:

1. Negative in the main clause (result):

Use won’t (= will not) in the result part to say what will not happen.

• If I don’t study, I won’t pass the test.

• If she arrives late, we won’t wait for her.

• If you don’t wear sunscreen, you won’t enjoy the beach.
  
  

2. Negative in the if-clause (condition):

Use don’t / doesn’t in the if part to show the condition won’t be met.

• If he doesn’t call, we’ll go without him.

• If you don’t clean your room, you won’t get dessert.

• If it doesn’t stop raining, we’ll cancel the game.
  
  

🔁 You can combine both:

• If she doesn’t try, she won’t succeed.
  
  

✅ Tip: The verbs in both parts stay in base form:

• If you don’t finish, you won’t get a prize.