French Grammar Explained /
The gerund (condition)
Ohlala, I don't feel well... it might be because I ate too many crêpes yesterday...
En buvant une tisane au fenouil, ça ira mieux.
Or maybe it's because I am a bit stressed... I have an exam coming up...
En révisant bien, tu auras ton examen.
Or maybe it's because of the weather, it's been raining for days now, it's kind of depressing...
En faisant de la luminothérapie, tu te sentirais mieux.
Oh my goodness, you have an answer for every problem!
Maybe not, but I have a new use of the gérondif for you!
That wasn't one of my problems...
Pas de panique, ce n'est pas compliqué ! Do you remember what we use the gerund for?
Oui : when 2 actions are happening at the same time and when we want to specify how an action is done.
Très bien. In the examples earlier, we can replace the gerund with a sentence starting with si, to express the condition:
En buvant une tisane au fenouil, ça ira mieux.
→ Si tu bois une tisane au fenouil, ça ira mieux.
If you drink a cup of fennel herbal tea, you will feel better.
En faisant de la luminothérapie, tu te sentirais mieux.
→ Si tu faisais de la luminothérapie, tu te sentirais mieux.
If you do some light therapy, you would feel better.
Be careful with the tenses here! Depending on how likely the things are to happen:
Gérondif + futur (quite realistic)
Gérondif + conditionnel (not that likely)
En buvant une tisane au fenouil, ça ira mieux.
En faisant de la luminothérapie, tu te sentirais mieux.
(In the example: the person is more likely to drink some herbal tea than go to light therapy.)