Learn the First Conditional

Intro

1. Learn Vocabulary - Learn some new vocabulary before you start the lesson.

Go Super to Listen

• primarily
• wane
• scam
• junk mail

• catch
• obsessed
• odds
• chore

• fingers crossed
• prize

2. Read and Prepare - Read the introduction and prepare to hear the audio.

Go Super to Listen

If you work hard, you could succeed. But wouldn’t it be easier just to enter a contest? Of course, people who enter contests can’t all be winners. But that doesn’t stop them from trying.

Some contests involve a quiz or physical competition, and require knowledge or talent. Others just require luck. But as Jason is beginning to learn, many contests come with a catch. Hear him explain to Marni why he just can’t stop entering contests.

Dialog

1. Listen and Read - Listen to the audio and read the dialog at the same time.

Log in to Listen

2. Study - Read the dialog again to see how the vocab words are used.

Jason

Marni

Jason:  I’ve become obsessed with entering contests.

Marni:  Really?

Jason:  Yeah. I think if I just enter enough, I’ll eventually win.

Marni:  ‘Cause the odds are sort of in your favor, the more you enter, the more likely you are to win.

Jason:  Right. But some contests these days make the odds really complicated. Like you can enter every day, and then sometimes I’ll enter for myself and people in my family, so it becomes this really big chore to go on this website every day, you know. But that grand prize, it’s just so sweet sometimes. You just look at that picture of that cruise ship, and you’re like, “Yes, I want that for free.”

Marni:  So, OK, I think you answered my question. It was gonna be, “Where do you enter contests?” It sounds like primarily via the internet.

Jason:  Yeah. I guess you could mail things in, I just don’t know where you find those.

Marni:  Yeah, that seems to be waning, although I recently kept seeing all these ads for the Publisher’s Clearing House, and I don’t really know how that works…

Jason:  Oh, I entered that! It’s online.

Marni:  It’s online. OK, so you just enter in. But you know, you just see people, these very normal looking people, winning millions of dollars, and you have to wonder, why is that not me?

Jason:  Exactly. But the problem is, it’s kind of a scam, ‘cause contests a lot of times will start sending you junk mail, or add you to some email list. So you kind of have to be fighting off all this stuff if you’re in the habit of entering contests.

Marni:  Yeah. Well, I…good luck, you know.

Jason:  Fingers crossed.

Marni:  Yeah.

Grammar Point

Go Super to learn "First Conditional" from this lesson

Quizzes

Go Super to take Quiz

Lesson MP3

Go Super to download full lesson MP3