Imagined situations
Are we talking about a fact or something we imagine?
المعنى
We can talk about a situation as something we imagine rather than as a fact. This lets us explore possibilities, picture a different past, or express a wish. Languages may use special verb forms, helper words, or context; some have no separate form for imagined situations. Condition makes one situation depend on another, while Imagined situations concerns whether we present something as imagined, with or without a condition.
طريقة التعرّف عليه
Look for forms, words, or context that present a situation as imagined, wished for, or different from what actually happened.
في اللغة الأم
Arabic commonly uses لو to introduce an imagined situation, especially one contrary to reality, and لَـ often introduces its result. Past-form verbs in this pattern can describe an imagined present as well as an unreal past. ليت expresses a wish, followed by a noun subject or an attached subject pronoun.
لو كان عندي وقتٌ الآنَ، لزرتُكِ. (Law kāna ʿindī waqtun al-āna, la-zurtuki.)
الآن makes the imagined situation present, despite the past-form verbs.
لو خرجنا قبلَ ساعةٍ، لوصلنا في الموعدِ. (Law kharajnā qabla sāʿatin, la-waṣalnā fī al-mawʿid.)
The sentence imagines a different past and its result.
ليتني أستطيعُ السفرَ معكم! (Laytanī astaṭīʿu al-safara maʿakum!)
ليت with the attached first-person pronoun expresses the speaker's wish.
في اللغة قيد التعلم
English often uses past forms to describe an imagined present or future, not just past time. Would, could, or might can show the imagined result of a condition. To imagine a different past, English commonly uses if with had and the past participle, the verb's third form such as gone, and would have with that form for the result.
If I lived closer, I would walk to work.
Lived is a past form, but it describes an imagined present situation.
If we had left earlier, we would have caught the bus.
The speaker imagines a different past: they did not leave early enough to catch the bus.
I wish I had a bigger kitchen.
Had describes a wish about the present, not something the speaker had in the past.
Learners whose language uses a conditional verb form in both parts may put would in an ordinary imagined if-condition. Learners whose language does not use past forms for imagined present situations may read every past form as referring to past time.