Present Unreal

[himani patterson]

Dear Mentor,

Consider the following sentence:
I will cook chicken followed by pasta.
Now, there is a strong possibility that I can cook pasta first and chicken later.
Can I say:
If I cooked Pasta first, I would chicken later (I am relating this sentence to Present unreal and not Future unreal.Can I do that for this sentence?)
or I have to use Future real
If I cook Pasta first, I will cook chicken later.

Thanks
Patterson

[Temico]

Dear Mentor,

Consider the following sentence:
I will cook chicken followed by pasta.
Now, there is a strong possibility that I can cook pasta first and chicken later.
Can I say:
If I cooked Pasta first, I would chicken later (I am relating this sentence to Present unreal and not Future unreal.Can I do that for this sentence?)
or I have to use Future real
If I cook Pasta first, I will cook chicken later.

Thanks
Patterson

strong possibility
"Strong possiblility" is equivalent to "probably", therefore,
"Probably I'll cook the pasta first and then the chicken."

[himani patterson]

I knew, you would come back with this answer but then I also focussed on Present unreal but that bit wasn't answered.
Now lets assume that there is no strong possibility that I will cook chicken first but I am merely thinking of cooking chicken first followd by pasta.

I will not talk about Future real here because I know that, that certainly makes sense as your explaination also suggested that.

I am coming from the background where I am not sure whether speaker refers to present unreal or future unreal when he/she says below in the given scenario:
i.e If I cooked Pasta first, I would chicken later

Could you please clarify.

Thanks
Patterson

[Temico]

I knew, you would come back with this answer but then I also focussed on Present unreal but that bit wasn't answered.
Now lets assume that there is no strong possibility that I will cook chicken first but I am merely thinking of cooking chicken first followd by pasta.

I will not talk about Future real here because I know that, that certainly makes sense as your explaination also suggested that.

I am coming from the background where I am not sure whether speaker refers to present unreal or future unreal when he/she says below in the given scenario:
i.e If I cooked Pasta first, I would chicken later

Could you please clarify.

Thanks
Patterson
If I cooked Pasta first, I would chicken later.

This is the second time you use this "sentence" so it can't be a typo. Instead of concentrating on "real" and "unreal" complicated, twisted grammatical jargon, why not first concentrate on whether your "sentence" makes sense? Tell me, if I wrote, "If I cooked chicken first, I would pasta later.", would it make sense to you??

[himani patterson]

ok, I have now changed my sentence to

If I cooked chicken first, I would cook pasta later

[Temico]

ok, I have now changed my sentence to

If I cooked chicken first, I would cook pasta later
Good. Now tell me what is the "difficulty" that you find with this sentence?

[himani patterson]

Scenario is:
I will cook pasta first and cook chicken later.

If someone now says:
If I cooked chicken first, I would cook pasta later.

Here,what I am not sure of is, when can a speaker refer to its present unreal meaning when he/she says the above sentence
(If I cooked chicken first, I would cook pasta later).

Could you please confirm?
Thanks
Patterson

[justlovelyfriends]

Consider this:

If I cook pasta I may/might cook chicken later.

This present unreal but I do not if it is your idea Himani.

Bye.

[Pete]

Scenario is:
I will cook pasta first and cook chicken later.

If someone now says:
If I cooked chicken first, I would cook pasta later.

Here,what I am not sure of is, when can a speaker refer to its present unreal meaning when he/she says the above sentence
(If I cooked chicken first, I would cook pasta later).

Could you please confirm?
Thanks
Patterson
Now that Temico helped you to clarify your question so I think I can understand it, let me jump in with some thoughts

The point is not to arbitrarily apply a label to the kind of conditional, but rather to understand when this sentence might be used and what it means.

You could use it to refer to something that you are not intending to do at some particular time in the future and the hypothetical consequence of that action. In that case, you would refer to it as "future unreal". I think you explained that this is the scenario you have in mind:

(- I'm planning to cook pasta and then chicken tomorrow, but if I cooked chicken first, I would cook pasta later.)

You could use exactly the same sentence to describe something you are not in the habit of doing and what the consequence would be if you ever did do it. This use is called "present unreal":

(- Whenever I make chicken cacciatore, I cook pasta first and then chicken, but if I cooked the chicken first, I would cook the pasta later.)