Using would in the past and future

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hi everybody my name is alicia in this

lesson i’m going to talk about how to

use

wood for unreal situations in the past

and in the future i’m going to talk

about making

statements and making some information

questions

let’s get started okay i want to begin

by talking about using wood for

past situations so for

past and future situations we use would

to describe

unreal situations so unreal

means something that did not happen

in this case in the past it’s something

that did not happen

but we want to talk about maybe

something

we think in our case we might have done

if it were us in the past or we might

not have done so

we maybe want to talk about changes to

actions in the past

so these are for situations that are not

real

so they did not happen let’s look at the

positive

expression then so when we make a

positive

statement using would in the past we’re

talking about a plan

or an opinion or something similar about

an

unreal past situation so

we make a statement with a pattern like

this

we begin with subject would

have and the past participle form of the

verb

so again this is for the past use of

wood

so for example i would have called you

earlier or he would have

given you more time for example

so this have plus the past participle

verb

creates a past tense structure so this

part

this is a key difference between past

and

future uses of wood so here is how we

make a positive

statement i’ll show some examples in

just a moment some more examples

first let’s look at how to make a

negative

statement here so a negative would

express an

alternate plan or opinion for an unreal

past

situation so this means for example

something happened maybe for example i

called someone

if i use the negative form of wood

to talk about that situation and i say

i would not have called that person

i’m giving an alternate plan so this

happened

i called someone but when i’m talking

about the situation

later i might want to say that it could

have been a good idea to

change that action i would not have

called that person

so we’re talking about an alternate plan

something different so some

change to a past action so

the change did not happen but it’s so

it’s an

unreal situation it’s not true it’s not

real

but we want to describe maybe something

we might have done

differently in the past so i’ll show

some examples in just a moment

we make this by using again the subject

followed by would to make it negative we

add

not subject would not and we use the

same

have plus the past participle verb

would not have past participle verb so

in my example just now i said

i would not have called you or

he would not have come for example

when we’re using the negative form

there’s

often some kind of other information

so we’re talking about some maybe

condition

often with if so again i’ll show that in

just a moment

finally a simple pattern that you can

use

to make information questions for

past wood situations is this

our wh question begins the question

so who what where when why how

so uh our wh question begins

followed by would the subject

have again and the past participle verb

for example what would you have

done in that situation or where

would he have gone for example so

we can build very basic wood questions

about the past

with this kind of pattern now i want to

look at

a couple of pronunciation points that

deal with these

two sentence patterns first

when you’re using this positive pattern

the pronunciation becomes something like

this

subject plus this d sound

and the sound so what does this mean

here the subject the subject remains the

same

i or he or she or we for example

this d right here this

d sound is the wood so we reduce

the wood sound to d so this means

i’d heed sheed weed

vade so it’s a d sound a very quick d

sound then this v e

portion v sound comes from

have have so would

have becomes

in very fast speech idev heediv

sheedev they div we div youtube

for example dev div so

this is one big point to listen for

another thing that will tell you if this

is a past

situation a past statement is the type

of verb that’s used here

so if you’re listening to this verb as

well you can hear if the person uses a

past participle verb

in connection with this kind of

pronunciation

you know that it’s a past would

statement

not for example a future would statement

so there are a few

hints to listen for here would’ve

so there’s this v sound and then

there’s this past participle verb sound

so

this is when you’re making a situation

uh this is when it’s connecting directly

to a subject

like idev hedev sheediv

so when you’re making a this is for

positive

statements as well when you’re making a

negative

however it becomes something like this

i’ve written here wouldn’t wouldn’t so

i don’t have the subject here but we

would include

the subject here again so i wouldn’t

he wouldn’t she wouldn’t so we can

imagine

the subject remains here i did not

include it in this section because the

pronunciation of the subject

part doesn’t really connect so much as

it does with the positive

in positive sentence structures this

subject would

and have closely connect in negative

structures this connection is not

quite as strong so i wouldn’t perhaps

there’s a little bit of a connection but

not as strong

i want to focus instead here on this

part so would we can see remains the

same

so for the negative sentence would

remains the same

subject would but here

this n is the not part

this is the not part wooden wooden

so for example maybe you know wouldn’t

which i’ll talk about later

so this n sound is the not part this

a sound is the have

part i wouldn’t i would not done that

she wouldn’t have come we wouldn’t have

called

for example so this part right here

actually means not have not

have i wouldn’t she wouldn’t they

wouldn’t we wouldn’t

so this is another key difference

between the

negative form and the positive form in

your pronunciation

so you can hear it’s quite different

this is one thing to practice

of course and to listen carefully for

so with this in mind let’s look at a few

example sentences

first a positive sentence i would have

come

but i had to work i would have come

but i had to work so here

i could reduce this i’ve made this a

very clear sentence i would

have come so itev

come would probably be the way a native

speaker would pronounce this just as

i’ve introduced here

my subject is i i reduce wood

to d and i make the

sound for have so i would have

come becomes i’d have come but i had to

work

i’d have come is how it sounds let’s

look at another example with a different

subject

he would have helped but he was cooking

he would have helped but he was cooking

again my subject

he connects to the wood

word which is reduced to d and

have becomes so he’d have helped

but he was cooking he’d have helped but

he was cooking

it’s how a native speaker would say this

so what did these sentences mean

i would have come but i had to work so

in this case maybe come to an event for

example

i would have come but i had to work

so that means a past situation maybe i

wanted to come to the party i wanted to

come to the event

but i had to work so this communicates

maybe the speaker

had a desire or had a plan a plan of

some kind

to do something in the past but it did

not happen

in this case the reason is the speaker

had to work

i would have come but i had to work so

we use

would to express that you could say i

wanted to come but i had to work

that would communicate pretty much the

same idea

in this sentence he would have helped

but he was cooking

so for example maybe would have helped

cleaning maybe

cleaning a house but he was cooking so

again

in the past he in this situation

maybe could have it was possible or

maybe he wanted to help

but he was cooking there was some other

responsibility

so these are common patterns like we

want to express

a past action we might have changed but

that we were not able to do because of

some other reason let’s continue on

to a couple of negative examples now

first she wouldn’t have left

early if she had known you needed

help she wouldn’t have left early if she

had known you needed help

so here we have our subject she which i

talked about here

and then i have here wouldn’t so i

reduced

wood knot together you might see this as

well

wouldn’t wouldn’t this is wood and not

wouldn’t have to make it even more

natural

we would say she wouldn’t she wouldn’t

she wouldn’t have left early

if she had known you needed help so in

this case

she in this situation left early she did

leave early that was the situation the

true situation

but the speaker in this case wants to

explain that

she this person would not have she would

have

changed this action if

she had known this other person needed

help so perhaps this is a communication

related issue

so she maybe would have stayed

so that was the change in the action she

perhaps might have stayed

if the she here knew this third party

needed some help so wouldn’t have

this means this person did leave she did

leave

so again this is an unreal situation

so um let’s continue on to see another

example of this then we wouldn’t have

called the police

if we hadn’t thought the situation was

dangerous

again we wouldn’t or wouldn’t

we wouldn’t have called the police if we

hadn’t thought the situation was

dangerous

here we wouldn’t have called the police

this means the speaker did call the

police the speaker

did call the police so we wouldn’t have

called the police

means is or rather is attached here

because

the speaker is saying they thought the

situation

was dangerous so we would not have

called the police

so in other words we might not have

or that would not have been our plan

if we hadn’t thought the situation was

dangerous

this is a past tense part too this part

is all in past tense

so that means the speaker felt some past

situation was dangerous and they’re

saying

that’s why we called the police

if we had not thought that situation was

dangerous

we would not have called the police

so this is kind of it may seem to be a

sort of confusing way

to communicate this idea but you may

hear patterns like this from time to

time to reinforce

maybe someone’s plan or someone’s

actions

okay so let’s continue with this in mind

then let’s continue on to

looking at how to use it for future

unreal situations

when we use wood for a future unreal

situation

we’re expressing like a potential so

it’s something

that could happen there’s a possibility

a potential

action for an unreal situation in

the future so a potential action or

this can mean potentially no action

so i’ll explain with some examples here

another point about this usage we often

or usually i have here use these

in response to an if question

so if you were if he were for example

or we pair it with an if clause

so we saw this actually in these uh

negative example sentences here this is

quite common when we’re using it to talk

about

future unreal situations so first

let’s look at how to make these to make

a positive statement

we use subject plus would

plus the present tense form of the verb

so here we see a key

difference when we’re using the future

form

we’re not using have in the past we used

have

and the past participle form of the verb

here we’re using

no have there’s nothing here and the

present tense

form of the verb when we make a negative

sentence then

it’s the same we drop have and we’re

using the present

tense so there’s no change to the verb

here

in the negative form we simply add not

then when we’re making questions we

follow a similar pattern

we use our wh question who what where

when why how

plus would plus our subject and again

a present tense verb so

as we did over here with the past form

let’s look at the pronunciation points

here this is a little bit

simpler when we use a positive

statement we can use the subject plus

this apostrophe

d so i’d heed sheed weed

when we used the negative form we use

wouldn’t i wouldn’t he wouldn’t she

wouldn’t

so there are only these two to consider

let’s see how we would use these to make

some questions and answers

i included a couple of example questions

that are fairly common patterns i think

so you can see

how to make some common questions with

wood

for example what would you do

if you won the lottery what would you do

if you won the lottery the lottery

is a cash a money prize so you buy a

ticket

and there’s a chance you win a big cash

prize that’s called

a lottery what would you do

so here we see if you won the lottery

here we have this if

part so this is a future unreal

situation

it’s possible there’s maybe a low chance

of it happening

but we’re talking about your future

actions or maybe your future plans or

opinions

here so what would you do if you won the

lottery

the speaker’s response in this case i

would

buy my parents a house i would buy my

parents a house

so you’ll notice here i’m not saying if

i won the lottery

i would buy my parents a house it’s okay

to say that

but it’s also okay to drop it when we

understand the question

we don’t have to repeat the question you

can if you want to practice

but a native speaker would respond like

this and a native speaker would probably

reduce this to i’d i’d buy my parents a

house

so i’d shows it’s a future unreal

uh decision a future unreal situation

another person you might say he would

take a long vacation

so if he won the lottery he would take

a long vacation so this is the speaker’s

idea about someone else’s future plan

future unreal plan so we don’t know that

it’s going to happen

it’s kind of an idea or a guess about

someone’s

choice let’s look at another question

what would you do if you lost your job

so you can see

there’s these common what would you do

if what would you do

if type patterns and then here we have

the

unreal situation in the future

these ins sorry these answers rather

these answers

use the negative form though what would

you do

if you lost your job the speaker says

i wouldn’t spend a lot of money

i wouldn’t spend a lot of money so the

speaker’s saying

if i lost my job in the future it’s not

a real situation

if it happened my my future action

would be to not spend a lot of money i

would not spend a lot of money in that

situation

which is unreal right now but if it

happened

that’s what i would do we use wood to

talk about that possible situation

another example she wouldn’t be

happy she wouldn’t be happy so if she

lost her job

she wouldn’t be happy so that’s talking

about her condition actually so we don’t

only have to describe like our behaviors

our actions we can also talk about our

conditions our emotional or our mental

states

she wouldn’t be happy she would be upset

for example

so we can use something like this to

respond to these

if questions if and would are commonly

paired together

so this is a quick introduction to

actually a kind of

complex grammar point but i hope that it

helps you understand how to use

wood for past and future unreal

situations

if you have any questions or comments

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thanks very much for watching this

lesson and i will see you again soon

bye bye

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