What kind of tense is being used in this sentence?
If you could travel anywhere in the world, where would you want to go?
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The events described by your verbs haven't happened yet, so it's future tense.– pabramsCommented Mar 7, 2019 at 5:42
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@pabrams This is not true. If could is some verb's "future tense" inflection, pray tell us then what its past and present tenses are.– tchrist ♦Commented Mar 7, 2019 at 6:19
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Second conditional.– Rusty CoreCommented Mar 7, 2019 at 7:01
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@tchrist Huh? English doesn't use inflection to express future tense. That's why we use auxiliaries like "will" and "would". Pray give us an example of any verb using a future inflection.– pabramsCommented Mar 7, 2019 at 14:19
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Are you asking about tense or mood?– LawrenceCommented Mar 8, 2019 at 13:10
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3 Answers
Future tense
https://www.englishpage.com/modals/could.html
As per the source
"Could" is a modal verb used to express possibility or past ability as well as to make suggestions and requests. "Could" is also commonly used in conditional sentences as the conditional form of "can." It is used in Past, Present and Future tense.
In If you could travel anywhere in the world, where would you want to go?, could is being used as the conditional of 'can'.
https://learnenglish.britishcouncil.org/english-grammar/will-or-would
As per the source would is used to talk about hypotheses, about something which is possible but not real:
It is being used to talk about the result or effect of a possible situation: EG: It would be very expensive to stay in a hotel
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1Conditional isn't a tense. According to your link, the sentence in the question is future tense.– pabramsCommented Mar 7, 2019 at 14:24
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The sentence is in future tense. Take a look at the examples at this link, particularly the positive forms in future tense.
It's a conditional sentence with "if." You use "would" to talk about imaginary situations. You can use any tense in the "if" part and "would" in the other part to signify the imaginary situation.
Hope I answered your question.
I recommend the following sites for great grammar info:
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Although you can use a conditional with any tense, the sentence in question is in the future tense. In the past tense, it would use "could have" and "would have", and in the present tense the conditional would be something like "When you can travel anywhere in the world, where do you go?" (Would read better using "when" instead of "if".)– pabramsCommented Mar 7, 2019 at 18:12
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pabrams - let's stay on "if" here. I can say, "If you had money to buy anything, what would you buy?" right? Here, the tense in the "if" part is the past tense and it still refers to a future event.– MikeCommented Mar 10, 2019 at 20:43
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"If you had money to buy anything, what would you buy?" is future tense. You can't say the first part of the sentence is past tense, because "if you had money to buy anything" doesn't make sense by itself. Although the word "had" might mislead some people into thinking that portion of the sentence is past tense, it's not; it's actually future. If it was past tense, you would use "had had", as in "If you had had money to buy anything, what would you have bought?"– pabramsCommented Mar 14, 2019 at 20:45
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And anyway, you haven't answered the question. He asked about the tense of the sentence, and you answered "it's conditional". Conditional is not a tense.– pabramsCommented Mar 14, 2019 at 20:47