Transcript of SOS Grammar Lesson 12 – Uses of Would

SOS Grammar: Lesson 12. Uses of Would. In this lesson, I’m going to discuss the many uses of ‘would’ in English and give you some examples of their use.

Would you believe how many ways we can use the auxiliary verb ‘would’ in English? Before we talk about its uses, let’s talk about what it is and its structure.

Wood is an auxiliary verb, more specifically a modal auxiliary verb. And why would that matter to you? A modal verb is a type of verb that contextually indicates a modality such as likelihood, ability, permission, request, capacity, suggestion, order, obligation or advice.

Modal verbs always accompany the base form of another verb, which adds the content to the sentence. This is important to note, especially when trying to understand the multitude of different uses of ‘would’.

We use ‘would’ for three main reasons. To talk about the past. To talk about the future in the past. Or to express the conditional mood. We can also use ‘would’ for other reasons, including polite requests and questions. Opinion or hope. Wish and regret and expressing desire.

So what is the structure of ‘would’? The basic structure for using ‘would’ is subject plus auxiliary verb ‘would’ plus the main verb. But we need to note that the auxiliary verb ‘would’ contains only one form: would. However, it can also be used to indicate the past of ‘will’. The main verb is usually in the base form.

So for example, “He would go.” So you have ‘he’, the subject; ‘would’, the auxiliary ‘would’, and ‘go’ is the main verb.

So here is the basic structure with positive, negative and question sentences. So for a positive sentence we have, “I would like coffee, please.” So we have the subject ‘I’, the auxiliary ‘would’, and the main verb ‘like’, and then the noun ‘coffee’.

In the negative form we have “He would not swim.” So we have the subject ‘he’, auxiliary ‘would’, ‘not’ and ‘swim’. We can also contract that to “He wouldn’t swim.”

And then in the question form we have “Would you help, please?” Now, notice in that form we have the ‘would’ and the subject flipped. So they’ve changed places. You can see what that looks like in the table in the notes for this lesson.

Now the main verb cannot be the to-infinitive. So for example, we cannot say “He would to like some coffee, please.” Obviously that one’s a simple example. Now, what about the negative form? As I just said before, the negative form of ‘would’ is ‘wouldn’t’ or ‘would not’.

We don’t use ‘don’t’, ‘doesn’t’, ‘didn’t’, with ‘would’. For example, “There wouldn’t be any food in the house if I decided not to do the shopping.”

What about contraction of ‘would’? So we have some examples. ‘I would’ becomes ‘I’d’. ‘I would not’ becomes ‘I wouldn’t’. Now, sometimes what can cause confusion is the short form of ‘had’ and ‘would’.

For example, ‘He’d finished when she arrived.’ equals ‘He had finished when she arrived.’ Or ‘She’d like some more coffee.’ equals ‘She would like some more coffee.’.

So as you can see the contractions of ‘had’ and ‘would’ sound the same. So don’t get them confused.

Now let’s look at some of the uses of wood. Now there are a number of uses of wood. So what I recommend is to have a pen and paper handy, maybe write down some of these examples or think about what are the situations where you might use some of these examples.

Let’s look at ‘would’ for the past. We often use ‘would’ as the past tense of ‘will’ or ‘going to’. For example, “Even as a child, he knew that he would become a lawyer.” “I thought that it would get hot, so I brought my bathers.”

Using ‘would’ as the past tense of ‘will’ or ‘going to’ is very common in reported speech. So have a listen to these examples. If somebody said “I will bring the wine.” and you use reported speech, “She said that she would bring the wine.” “I will get off to a great start when I’m Prime Minister.” “Albanese said that he would get off to a great start when he is Prime Minister.” “It’s going to rain.” “I told you it would rain.”

And because we’re talking about politics, it’s very topical. Remember the ad campaign? “It won’t be easy under Albanese”. Well, the Liberals said ‘it wouldn’t be easy under Albanese’, but he still won the election.

We often use ‘would not’ to talk about past events or incidents that were refused or didn’t happen. For example, “He wanted to go overseas on exchange, but his mum wouldn’t let him.” “Yesterday morning, it was cold so the car wouldn’t start.” And in both of those examples, notice how I use the contracted form of ‘would not’ and I turn it into ‘wouldn’t’.

We can also use ‘would’ to talk about past habits. We sometimes use ‘would’ in the same way as we use used to when talking about past behaviour that was habit. For example, “When I was young, I would play netball every Saturday morning.” So you could use the different version and say, “When I was young I used to play netball every Saturday morning.” “Every summer, we’d spend two weeks at the beach during Christmas holidays.” As kids, we’d have the biggest arguments.” And notice how, in those last two examples, I’ve contracted ‘we would’ to ‘we’d’.

We can also use ‘would’ for the future in past. So when talking about the past, we can use ‘wood’ to express something that has not happened at the time we were talking about it. So it’s said from the point of view of the past. Now, let me give you some examples to help you understand that concept.

“Little did she know when she was travelling through Europe she had met the person that she would one day marry.” “He took a chance and applied for the job, unaware that it would be the job of his dreams.” “He said he would see his brother tomorrow.” “He realised it wouldn’t be easy to find another job.”

We can also use ‘would have’ or contracted to ‘would’ve’ and we use this to refer to a time in the past from a point of view in the future. “I thought he would’ve finished by now, but I haven’t heard from him.” Or “I thought he would have finished by now, but I haven’t heard from him.”

The next main use of wood is in conditionals. We often use ‘would’ in second and third conditionals. For example, “If you lost your job, what would you do?” A hypothetical situation. “If he didn’t work, he would be bored at home.” “If we had left 5 minutes earlier, we wouldn’t have been late.”

Using the same conditional structure we often use ‘would’ when giving advice. For example, “I wouldn’t eat that if I were you.” “If I were you, I’d wait until the market crashes again to buy more crypto.” “If you ask me, I would say, just do it.” “I wouldn’t worry so much if I were you.” “I wouldn’t go that way if I were you.” “I would try and check this with an expert.”

We can also use ‘would’ for desire or intention. “I would love to live there.” Notice the use of the contraction, too. “I’d love to live there.” “Would you like some coffee?” “I would really like some coffee, please.” “I’d really like some coffee, please.” Notice in that second example how I use contraction. “They said they would help.”

We can also use ‘would’ for polite requests, permission and questions. “Would you go with me?” And this is more polite than ‘Will you go with me?’ And it’s a request. “Would you pass me the plate, please?” Which is more polite than ‘Pass the plate?’ Or ‘Can you pass the plate, please?’ But similar to “Could you pass the plate, please?” So ‘would’ and ‘could’ can be used interchangeably if we want to think about polite language. But ‘would’ is more polite than ‘can’. Or just saying ‘Pass the plate to me.’ “Would you mind changing the meeting time?” Now this is a request. Notice also this is a gerund. So we hear the gerund form in this version.

“Would you mind finishing that report by tomorrow?” So that’s another request. And we also use the gerund. So when you have the expression ‘would you mind’, it’s followed by the verb in the gerund form. “Would you mind if I change the meeting to tomorrow?” Now, this is slightly different because you’re asking permission and it’s more using the conditional mood. “Would you mind if I used your computer?” Asking for permission. Conditional mood.

We can also use ‘would’ in question forms. For example, “Why would you do that?” To express disbelief. “Why would anyone want to eat that?” Express disbelief. “What would you do if you were me?” Asking advice. “When would you like to go?” This is a polite question. Instead of using “When do you want to go?” “Where would you like to go?” So, polite question instead of “Where do you want to go?” And finally, “How would you like to pay?” Instead of saying, “How do you want to pay?” So it’s more polite to say, “How would you like to pay?” than “How do you want to pay?”

When you use ‘would’ at the beginning of the question, the subject and would change position. Now we spoke about this earlier on in the lesson. “Wouldn’t that be a good idea?” Or “Would that be a good idea?”

We can also use ‘would’ for opinion or hope. “You would hope they would compensate the shop owner.” “I would have to agree.” “It’s not what we would have expected from a professional service.” “I would think we should speak to someone before we make any big decisions.” So all those examples are trying to make your opinion softer and more polite.

We can also use ‘would’ for expressing our wishes. “I wish you would stay.” which means ‘I really want you to stay.’, ‘I hope you will stay.’ “They don’t like me. I’m sure they’d wish I’d resign.” So in that version, we have the contracted ‘I would.’ So, “they really want them to resign.” “I wish it would stop raining.” So it’s really expressing that wish that it stopped raining.

We can also use ‘would’ for presumption or expectation. So imagine someone is ringing on the phone and they say, “Who is it?” “Oh, that would be mum calling since she found out the good news.”

We can also use ‘would’ for uncertainty. “It would seem that he’s feeling better.” So it’s less certain than “I think he’s feeling better.” “He seems to be feeling better.” “It would appear that they were wrong.” So it’s less certain than “I think you were wrong.” Or “It appears that they were wrong.”

Lastly, we can also use ‘would’ for a derogatory comment. So imagine somebody that you know has said something that they usually say and they just put their foot in it. They do something that doesn’t sound very nice. And you might say, “Well, of course he would say that, wouldn’t he?” Because it’s something that you expect to happen, but you want to point it out that it’s a bad thing. “He said there was nothing wrong with what he said to her. Well, he would, wouldn’t he?”