Hi, I’m new to posting in this sub and not sure if this is an appropriate place to discuss this topic. However, I need your help and your knowledge to understand this concept.

According to the explanation on this page, the counterfactual conditional is defined as a sentence that assumes circumstances unlike the facts a speaker can perceive, e.g. “If Sally owned a donkey, she would ride it.” In this example, they placed the fake tense form “owned” into the condition clause and the past-inflected modal “would” into the consequence clause. As a result, we can see that Sally doesn't in fact own a donkey.

I have a question about this. What form should I use when the actual situation of the subject is unclear and the sentence expresses imagination? For example, I made the sentence “That director would hate this kind of movie [if he saw it]” I don't know if the director has seen the movie, or if he likes it or not, but I know the director's character well, so I guess he would dislike that movie. In this context, is this treated as a counterfactual conditional sentence? Or should it be some other form of ”If he sees that movie, he will hate it”?