Use of would/Had

[amna]

Here I found the sentence in your progressive form explanation please explain the use of would & had here, is it for future, How can we use it.

My wife would be flying to Madrid tomorrow if she had a holiday.

I am little confuse about tenses like present perfecr & present perfect continous, some one said in the site that they are same what is the difference . please explan me

it is really important,

Thanks

Amna

[Carbonarius]

Hi Amna,

I'll try to explain it: I think that the sentence doesn't change much if you say:

My wife would fly to Madrid tomorrow if she had a holiday

I don't know if you still don't understand it, so I'll continue with the explanation:

My wife wants to go to Madrid, but she is working. She can't go to Madrid because she is working: that's the only problem. IF she HAD a holiday, she WOULD fly to Madrid. Or, to put another way, IF she WAS NOT working, she WOULD fly to Madrid.

As you see, these kind of phrases have two parts. One part goes with IF and the verb in the past: that's why you say HAD. The other part goes with WOULD and the verb in the present tense.

[Amna]

Thanks for your answer, I am toefl student & I read in toefl prepration book for structure where they explain the would with if & Had for future preference, I do not understand the use of would with if & had, as you said it is (for the past) as I understand, please answer me.

Thanks

Amna

[Carbonarius]

Yes, I think I understand what the problem is. Maybe my explanation wasn't correct.

You say that in the Toefl preparation book you read about the use of IF, WOULD and HAD for future preference. Well, there's a kind of sentence, I think it's called Second Conditional, which uses IF and WOULD, not HAD. As I said before, in your example you use HAD because with IF the verb goes in the past. But it could be any other verb: If I SAW a rainbow, I would be happy. These sentences are used for the future, as you said. So is the sentence you asked about.

The verb goes in the past: it means that you use the past form of the verb, but it doesn't refer to the past at all.

[amna]

First of all I am thankful to U for my help. here is one more question, I went to the walmart, looking for reader digest but could not find it, I asked one of employ & she said

"I think ,we do not have, but if we had it it would be in magzine section"

What is the sence of using secind clause ( if , had, would)
please explain, I am still confused but learning more from You

Thanks

amna