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Which conditional is this?

When you do your homework, you can listen to some music.

It seems to be the zero conditional. Timeless. But can it be the first conditional?

When you do your homework (tomorrow morning), you can listen to some music.

My question is this: can When you do your homework, you can listen to some music. be understood as the first conditional?

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  • It's odd. Bad English. What is the source?
    – James K
    Nov 27, 2022 at 8:45
  • It doesn't seem to me to be a conditional at all. Nov 27, 2022 at 8:49
  • I picked it up somewhere on one of English forums. Don't remember which one exactly.
    – user1425
    Nov 27, 2022 at 8:49
  • Kate Bunting, When you throw stones, they fall. If you throw stones, they fall. / If you do you home work, you can listen to music.
    – user1425
    Nov 27, 2022 at 8:52
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    It's quite natural to my Canadian ears. See my answer
    – gotube
    Nov 27, 2022 at 18:32

3 Answers 3

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The meaning of this sentence is ambiguous because of the present simple.

It could mean, "You never do any homework, and when you start doing homework, you'll have permission to listen to some music." Or it could mean, "After you have finished your homework, you'll have permission to listen to some music."

Either way, it's a future condition about a future result, so it's closest to first conditional. It doesn't represent eternal truths, so it's not zero-conditional.

It's also used with present perfect. This sentence with present perfect would only have the second meaning above.

And contrary to answers from other people, the sentence is correct, and pretty natural, at least in North America.

This structure in this context indicates denial of permission to do something until some other condition is met. Parents and teachers use it all the time. It's almost only said to children.

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  • "Almost only said to children" - about homework, sure, but I don't think the structure is restricted to children in general, eg "When you order your meal, you can ask for a side of fries"
    – psmears
    Nov 28, 2022 at 12:03
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    I don't think permission has to be involved at all, e.g. "when you go to Paris, you can visit some medieval churches" - same construction. Nov 28, 2022 at 14:39
  • Context is king. In a different context, yes this structure would only mean what the words literally say, but in the context of doing your homework, it's a parent-child conversation about permission.
    – gotube
    Nov 28, 2022 at 16:33
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    I think the word some plays a very large and unmentioned role in the understanding of this phrase. The addition or subtraction of that word changes the meaning. When you do your homework, you can listen to music, means you can listen to music while you are doing your homework. As it's written, When you do your homework, you can listen to some music, means after you have finished your homework you can listen to music. That's why some is included.
    – EllieK
    Nov 28, 2022 at 18:15
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I find your sentence 1 completely normal and unexceptional. As James points out, there is an ambiguity; and Gotube suggests you another meaning.

But until I read their answers, I never even thought of a meaning other than "while you are doing your homework, you can listen to some music". I thik Gotube's sense about denial of permission would be natural given a context, but it never occurred to me just reading the sentence.

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  • Agreed, it's not unnatural, but '... when you've done your homework' would be my parents' and teachers' use of the permission variant.
    – mcalex
    Nov 28, 2022 at 18:00
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It's odd/bad English. Presumably the intent is either:

While you are doing your homework, you can (=may) listen to music.

or

When you've done your homework, you can listen to music.

And the aspect (continuous or perfect) makes it not timeless.

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