Using would in the past and future
want to speak real english from your
first lesson
sign up for your free lifetime account
at englishclass101.com
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
please feel free to let us know in the
comment section of this video
of course if you like the video please
be sure to give it a thumbs up
subscribe to our channel if you haven’t
already and please check us out at
englishclass101.com
for some other things that can help you
with your english studies
thanks very much for watching this
lesson and i will see you again soon
bye bye
want to speed up your language learning
take your very first lesson with us
you’ll start speaking in minutes and
master real conversations
sign up for your free lifetime account
just click the link in the description