Spanish L2 learners’ awareness of conditional sentences and educational suggestions

Spanish L2 instruction on conditional constructions with the conjunction ‘si’ presents a few limited formal rules. These rules lack explanations for the usage of the verbs used in the protasis and apodosis and the different meanings according to the realization of the condition. Therefore, Spanish L2 learners may misinterpret or make errors in uses not covered by these rules. Furthermore, the differences between CCC-constructions, which are composed of conditional complex connectives, and Si- constructions are often not clearly explained in Spanish L2 teaching. To investigate whether Spanish L2 learners can correctly recognize the semantic interpretation of Si-constructions and CCC-constructions, this study aims to conduct experiments in which learners are presented with example sentences using verbs in different moods and tenses in the protasis and apodosis of both constructions and asked to choose the correct interpretation. Based on the experimental results, we propose to supplement the explanation of the types of conditional sentences where learners commonly make errors and have misunderstandings. Additionally, we suggest presenting Si and CCC constructions in comparison to help learners recognize their similarities and differences.