Kiedy will, a kiedy might???

witam

mógłby mi ktoś powiedzieć kiedy używa sie will, a kiedy might?

tylko szybko bo kartkówka jutro!!!

I WILL do it - zrobię to , na pewno
I MIGHT do it - być moze to zrobię

chyba już widzisz różnicę

byłbym zapomniał...

kiedy używa się if, a kiedy unless??

unless = if not

You will ruin your health UNLESS you stop smoking.
You will ruin your health IF you doN'T stop smoking.

'Unless' most definitely doesn't mean 'if not':

What would you do you do if you weren't wrong?
What would you do ???unless??? you weren't wrong?

Little, if not nothing, of what you are saying is true.
Little, ???unless??? nothing, of what you are saying is true.

ok,

so, how would you explain what 'unless' means to your student (young person, let's say pre-interm. level)

The conjunction "unless" shouldn't be a headache for the speakers of Polish. Its sense is pretty close to "except under the circumstances that..." ["(no?) chyba ze..."]. Just explain to him what "chyba ze" means in his native language.
You could also mention to him that the unless-clause/sentence introduces the sole circumstance or reason and doesn't allow unreal hypotheticals.
I almost forgot: I wouldn't use the word "conditional" at all.


For example,

1. There will be another world war unless the criminals are put behind bars.

The speaker says he thinks that only locking up the criminals (the sole circumstance) may prevent another world war. Whether the criminals end up in the cooler is an open question, but the speaker believes it may happen.


2. There would have been no war *unless the criminals had pushed for it (but they did).

Doesn't work because the circumstance is unreal: the criminals indeed pushed for it.


3.What will the criminals do *unless there is war?

Makes no sense if you recall what "unless" means.

>The conjunction "unless" shouldn't be a headache for the speakers of
>Polish.

You say it shouldn't. I say it is. So what now?

>You say it shouldn't. I say it is. So what now?

Now you know you are part of the problem?

The more I think of it, the more complicated it is getting.
"chyba że" is a good way to communicate the meaning of "unless" and often a convenient translation
but
I would never use "chyba że" at the beginning of a sentence
'unless he joins us, we will never finish it in time'
"Jeżeli nie" is how I would begin the sentence in Polish.
also
(perhaps the musings below are a bit far-fetched):
"chyba że" often requires a pause before it, which can be represented in writing by a dash.
"Nie pójdę tam - chyba że mnie przeprosi"
The addition of 'no' before 'chyba że' makes the pause really necessary. It also makes this phrase quite informal.
If the whole sentence containing 'unless' is pronounced without stopping, 'jeśli nie' is a better translation.

That's how the meaning gets corrupted in inept translations. Why not safeguard the meaning and rearrange the clauses to put the independent clause first instead of replacing "unless" with "if not", if that's what your sense of good Polish requires.

Not all unless-clauses are afterthoughts that follow a dash; usually not even a comma separates the unless-clause from the main clause.

"If she doesn't join us, we'll never finish..." can be restated as "her not joining us is/will be the reason for our being late."
"Unless she joins us, we'll never finish..." means "her joining us is the only thing that may prevent us from being late."

Those are two different sentences with two distinct shades of meaning. "Unless" and "if not" are never equivalent outside of the realm of Boolean algebra.

>"If she doesn't join us, we'll never finish..." can be restated as
>"her not joining us is/will be the reason for our being late."
>"Unless she joins us, we'll never finish..." means "her joining us is
>the only thing that may prevent us from being late."

The difference in meaning you postulate higes on your use of 'may' rather than 'will' in 'may prevent'. I think that in many instances the interpretation of an unless-clause will veer towards 'will'. Consider the following:

'He won't go to sleep unless you read him a book'

Would you insist that it can only be paraphrased as 'If you read him a book, he MAY go to sleep?' Didn't the speaker (a parent?) actually mean "the only way of getting him to go to sleep is to read him a book'?

Having said that, I do not intend to question the general vailidity of your conclusions. The specific point I want to make is that 'the distinction between UNLESS and IF NOT is sometimes not observed'.
The answer to the original question was over-simplified. However, this is how 'unless' is usually introduced in English textbooks for foreign learners. if the person who posted that question was looking for more detailed information, they might have said so and then the person who responded would probably have written more.
What enrages you is that we don't write everything we should. This is because we know quite well what school students need and most of the posters are school students using pre-intermediate/intermediate textbooks. If they want more information from us, they are free to ask for more. Believe me, I wouldn't explain any grammar issue away in this way to my students at the university, but I have taught beginners.