confused with conditionals

Question

I've got confused with first and second conditional in the following sentence:

You'd never get there unless you go by jet.

and

You'd never get there unless you went by jet.

I'd like to know whether both are correct in structure and what's the difference in the meaning.

I am not sure about your main question about the tense for go, but as a side point, when you use go by to talk about a generic method of transportation, you don't use an article. It should simply be go by jet or went by jet. If you want to emphasize a specific vehicle, you could say go in a jet. — Nate Eldredge, Commented Jul 24, 2015 at 14:32
Actually, as you said, the tenses were the problem. Articles were my mistakes. I changed them. tnx! — arash, Commented Jul 24, 2015 at 14:42

Chad · Accepted Answer · 2015-07-24 16:01:08Z

2

As a native US English speaker, the second sentence sounds more correct. The first one seems like it's mixing tenses.

If I know someone is planning to go for certain, I might say:

You'll never get there unless you go by jet.

If someone is just thinking or dreaming about going, but it's more hypothetical, not a concrete plan, I might say:

You'd never get there unless you went by jet.

answered Jul 24, 2015 at 16:01

Chad

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