How to Express Wishes about the Past in English
i think it’s rolling great hi everybody
and welcome back to our weekly
live stream my name is alicia and today
we are going to talk about
how to express wishes about the past i’m
going to focus
on using grammar like should have and
could have so if you need to practice
these grammar points
i hope that you will find some good
opportunities some good chances
in today’s lesson while we wait
for everyone to join us live of course
uh
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today’s lesson boards let’s take a
look today’s topic is how to express
wishes about
the past so uh if you joined
last week maybe you recognize this
grammar i wish i had
and i should have we’re going to cover
this again we’re going to review
then we’re going to practice i could
have and i couldn’t have
finally we’ll end with some useful
expressions
and some very very basic grammar uh
practice
okay cool so now everybody is here
let’s get going let’s talk about how to
use
uh our review point again so again
i covered this in last week’s live
stream and i want to review it
because one it’s a very useful grammar
point
uh and a useful pattern but also i want
to review
um the verb form we use many people uh
struggled a bit with this verb form last
week so
let’s review uh different example
sentences from last week if you joined
so the first uh way to express a wish
about the past is with i wish i had
i wish i had or i should have
i should have you can choose one of
these two
we tend to use i wish i had
together with a simple past tense like
point so when we say for example when i
was a kid
or this morning or last year
like we tend to express a specific point
in time
with i wish i had
you can use i should have to express the
same feeling
but you can drop it’s very common to
drop the specific
past point in time okay so
to make these patterns we use i wish i
had
plus the past participle form of the
verb
i should have plus past participle form
too
so a reminder the past participle form
is not
past tense it is not the infinitive form
so for example i wish i had eaten
or i should have eaten that uh special
form of the verb with eat
in this case needs to be used here last
week i saw many
uh in the chat using the ing form that’s
not
correct like eating or drinking that’s
not
correct so you need to use the past
participle form so
for today’s lesson of course you can
send your comments in the chat
you can send example sentences in the
chat and i will try to check
live okay let’s go to
some examples and a quick refresh what
does this mean
so this pattern means the desired action
did not happen so i wish i had or
i should have something something means
the desired action
the thing i want the action i wanted
did not happen and i feel unhappy
about it so let’s look at some examples
i wish i had taken some economics
classes
in school i wish i had taken some
economics classes
in school i wish i had taken
is my past participle verb some
economics
classes plural here in school
so i’ve used i wish i had pat this i
wish i had pattern
and i’ve used it together with this
simple like i’m i’m talking about
a past point in time or past period
in school here yeah so this is a very
common example sentence i wish i had
verb and a past point
quick note pronunciation note i wish i
had i wish
i had becomes reduced we reduced this to
i wish i’d
so at native speed i would say this
sentence like
i wish i’d taken some economics classes
in school it’s quite quick yeah
like i wish i had becomes i wish i’d
taken i wish i’d take him
so this i had in particular is reduced
to
i’d i wish i’d taken some economics
classes in school
okay so let’s look at the second example
here
i should have gone to bed
earlier last night i should have gone to
bed earlier
last night and it’s very common to use
this
without last night just i should have
gone to bed earlier
i should have gone to bed earlier right
here is another
pronunciation point i should have i
should have
this should have is reduced to shoulda i
should have gone to bed earlier
i should have gone to bed earlier okay
uh ah mario has a good question what
about i wish
i could as a instead of i wish i had
yeah
you can use i wish i could have
to express that something in the past
was
impossible but you wanted to do it
so i wish i could have taken some
economics classes in school totally
correct
totally correct it means it was
impossible
maybe your schedule was too busy for
example this one just means i did not do
it
i wish like i had so i wanted to
so the nuance changes there
hironi on youtube says i wish i had
studied more for my exam
good nice example okay um
taro dr says should of gone no that is a
very common mistake that native speakers
make a lot
in speech should have gone sounds like
shoulda gone shoulda gone so many native
speakers make a mistake right here
they use of uh o f
of totally incorrect totally wrong
should have
gone should have gone so please don’t
use of
there it is totally incorrect and yes
native speakers make that mistake a lot
why don’t i make a new video for ask
alicia there’s new videos every about
every week i think
i think so okay um i don’t see other
questions so let’s look at the negative
then yeah
okay let’s compare this to the negative
i wish i hadn’t
and i shouldn’t have i wish i hadn’t and
i shouldn’t have plus
past participle verb the same verb form
here yeah
i wish i hadn’t eaten or i shouldn’t i
shouldn’t have eaten
this shouldn’t have is should not have
and this i wish i hadn’t is i wish
i had not okay i wish i had not
verb i shouldn’t have is i should not
have
verb this means an undesirable action
happened so the negative pattern this
negative pattern means something in the
past
happened yes but it was not good
i do not want that action it was bad it
was not
not a good situation so let’s look at
some examples of this
i wish i hadn’t watched
so much tv this year i wish i hadn’t
watched so much tv this year
some people ask can i use two here t-o-o
no no you cannot use two i wish i hadn’t
watched
so much tv this year so that means i
watched a lot of tv
i wish i had not watched that much tv
uh stin says uh question alicia i wish
you were here how about that
grammatically correct grammatically
correct i wish you were here
expresses a wish about the present
though
to express a wish about the past i wish
you had been there
i wish you had been there so you can
change this
right here in these patterns to express
a wish about someone else
okay vivek is this a live or a premiere
this is alive
we’re live every week uh
what john carla on facebook says what
about present participle of that example
do you mean maybe this example
um like uh i’m not sure which example
that you mean
i’m not sure okay uh
let’s go to next example sentence okay
uh one more i should have spent more
time
studying last month i should have spent
more time
studying last month so in other words i
did not spend very much time
studying last month and now i feel sad
so i should have spent more time
studying last
month so here’s my past participle verb
i should have spent
more time studying all right
uh that’s it for this first part again
this is a review from last week so we’ll
cover some new stuff
from part two today okay um
babna says what about you wish yes you
wish you can use you wish to mean
like usually as a joke like you wish
like something you want that’s something
you want not me
so kind of different from today’s topic
okay let’s take a big take a break take
a break
and take a break oh that was funny and
then we’ll go to
part two for today so if you missed it
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course today’s lesson is about
how to express wishes about the past
with
should have and could have and a couple
other things
too so we are focusing on this past
thing right we’re focusing on talking
about like
things we regret or maybe things that
were funny or embarrassing
okay so let’s go to part two let’s look
at our lesson
boards very quickly so we talked about
this point
our review point from last week now
let’s talk about
could let’s talk about could have and
couldn’t have
and then we’ll end with some quick and
useful expressions yay
okay so also reminder if you have not
already please please please make sure
to like this video because it helps
others
find the lesson and share of course too
that would be super cool
okay um let’s go to part two
part two could have okay
let’s talk about kudav this one confuses
many people so we have visuals we have
diagrams
okay so could have i could have
plus plus plus past participle verb
i could have past participle verb
so this pattern is the same as the
pattern we used in part one
right we use could that’s the only
change here i could have
plus our verb so what does this mean you
cannot use this
instead of should have like the grammar
is correct yes
but the meaning changes so what does
this mean
for example i could have eaten something
this means
an action was possible
in the past so here’s a timeline past
now future an action was possible
in the past but it did not happen it did
not happen
so we want to express possibility past
possibility okay an action was possible
in the past but it did not happen
so this one is very common
with if sentence patterns if i had
something something
i could have something something yeah we
practice conditionals quite often
on these channels so uh we’re going to
practice
a couple of these with an if pattern you
can send yours
in the chat i will try to check live
okay
uh okay i’m looking for your questions
too so let’s take a look at our could
have
example sentences then i
could have learned a new skill this year
if i had been able to focus
i could have learned a new skill this
year
if i had been able to focus
so let’s break this down here i’ll use
marker real quick
what’s happening here i could have
learned a new skill this year
so here is where my uh here’s where my
main clause
ends yeah i could have learned a new
skill this year
so right here oh this is really hard
okay
right here marks this past
action that was possible i could have
learned a new skill this year
but then i say if i had been able to
focus that means i was not
able to focus it was difficult for me to
focus it was a strange year
so it did not happen so we have these
two parts this if
part and this main part there are two
parts here so i’m not going to talk
about if conditionals today
but this is how we use could have let’s
look at another example this uses
the opposite order if is at the
beginning
of the sentence so if
i had seen your message
if i had seen your message i
could have helped you if i had seen your
message i could have helped you
so in this one we have right here is our
main clause i could have helped you it
goes to here
yeah i could have helped you so that
was the possible action i could have
helped you
it was possible but here i have
if i had seen your message if
i had seen your message this means i did
not see your message
i did not see your message so this did
not happen
i did not help you so we just want to
express
that past possibility also
at native speed we reduce these sounds
right here
i could have so this i could have
learned
sounds like i could have learned i could
have learned
this whole sentence i’ll read the
sentence one time at native speed
sounds like i could have learned a new
skill this year if i’d been able to
focus
so my reduction the short sounds come
right here i could have
and if i had
been this these are the main big
reductions here
i could have learned becomes coulda and
if i had been able this part becomes if
i’d
if i’d been able okay so
if i’d seen your message i could have
helped you
so please make sure to use that
reduction that short sound
in your speech okay uh some of you are
sending examples so i will read a few
out loud um
orban sorry if i said your name wrong
says i could have learned english
if i had had time if i had had
time so a quick reminder when
sometimes this verb is have the past
participle form is
had if i had had so there’s two hands
there it’s correct i know it seems
strange
it’s correct though if i had had time
okay
on facebook says what is the difference
between could have helped you like i
could have helped you
and could help you so i could have
helped you
is a past sentence like pattern
i could have helped you in the past i
could help you
means now so like uh do you have time
now
i could help you it’s like an offer now
i could have helped you means in the
past but
it didn’t happen okay i hope that helps
okay wow lots of examples are coming in
um
[Music]
aj gabriel says can we say i could have
played
played piano better
if i still learn it no you can
i’m not quite sure um what you want to
express maybe
i could have played piano better if i
had
studied more maybe so
this this is also a past structure yeah
a past structure
okay uh some of you
and your example sentences on youtube
you’re forgetting this half
i could have studied i could have
learned so don’t forget your helping
verb here yeah this is important
okay all right let’s go to the negative
form
then too uh the negative form
i couldn’t have past participle verb i
couldn’t have
past participle verb so i want to say
this one is not as common
as this one so we use this one
fairly often sometimes in speech
this is less common so what do we use
this pattern for
i could not have plus past participle
verb
we use this for an action or a condition
usually is it’s for a condition so
we want to express some state a status
so an action or a condition was
not possible in the past
because of a different past action
so what’s the difference i could have
here
expresses something was possible in the
past
so it’s uh it didn’t happen no but it
was possible
this one is the opposite this action in
the past
was not possible it was impossible
so we want to express that so one
example
again this one’s not as common so
i couldn’t have known
you were coming today i didn’t see your
message
i couldn’t have known you were coming
today i didn’t see your message
this means it was impossible
for me to know you were coming today
so i didn’t know and there was no chance
for me to know
because i didn’t see
your message i didn’t see your message
so this one we don’t really use these if
uh
clauses with we don’t really use that we
use
kind of a short past tense example sent
a
past tense explanation usually
so what’s happening here is i’m
expressing
this impossible action i couldn’t have
known you were coming today
and this sentence expresses the reason
it was impossible i didn’t see your
message
so we used this past tense yeah i didn’t
see
so this is different from the positive
here
so i’m expressing this is the condition
where this action would have been
possible
so this is quite different to the two
patterns
okay helen says what’s the difference
between could have and should have i
talked about should have in
the beginning of this lesson so please
check this stream
after it has finished rolling okay i’m
looking for your questions
uh yeah people are just writing i didn’t
see your message i didn’t see your
message
um i couldn’t have booked a ticket
because i didn’t know about it so again
don’t forget this helping verb i
couldn’t
have booked a ticket i couldn’t
have done something so don’t forget
those helping verbs
yeah okay um
[Music]
we can say and we could say what’s the
difference between them
can you give me an example like we can
we can use those to talk about uh
like examples or to imagine situations
yeah uh it kind of depends a bit okay
uh oh my gosh let’s go to the end like
that’s all for part
two if you have other questions you can
send them uh
of course to our question and answer
series
okay um let’s take one more quick quick
quick quick quick break and then we’ll
go to the very short
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yeah
okie dokie let’s go to part
three of course if you’re just joining
please do make sure please make sure to
like this video and share it so other
people
can find today’s lesson i will show you
our lesson boards
so that you can take a screenshot now
okay so here is our flow for today
um so first we talked about this part
right here how to express
wishes about the past with i wish i had
and i should have
and shouldn’t have and we just finished
this part i could have and i couldn’t
have now
let’s finish with some very basic very
kind of funny
expressions you can use uh to
react to situations so you can react or
you can share your feeling
about those past situations about past
regret
or about something funny or embarrassing
that happened
in the past okay
okay let’s go to the final points
someone says what is the difference
between has and had i have
many videos about haz and dad
uh please do a quick search of our
videos on our youtube channel maybe the
i’m not sure if it’s on the facebook
page but please make sure
to do a search for that i have made many
videos okay
useful expressions let’s take a look at
some useful expressions
for like reacting so how do you express
your feelings
about your past action for example
i ate too much junk food and i use a
pattern like oh
i shouldn’t have eaten so much junk food
yesterday
i feel sick that was so stupid
that was so stupid so this
that was so is a great pattern to use to
express your feelings about a past
condition or past action that you did
so i shouldn’t have eaten so much junk
food that was so stupid oh
no so stupid it means
it was not smart stupid is the opposite
of smart so
generally don’t don’t say someone else
is stupid that’s not very nice
but you can make a joke about yourself
with stupid that was so stupid
so when i do something not smart i often
say oh that was stupid
so you can use it too all right you can
use
other adjectives in this pattern you can
send some as well too
so that was so funny as well like oh
that was so embarrassing like oh my gosh
i shouldn’t have done the presentation
with a coffee stain on my shirt that was
so embarrassing embarrassing means
it causes us to feel shame we feel
ashamed
something uh that is embarrassing you
can also use
crazy crazy well that was so crazy so
something that was hard to believe or
just
like really really uh kind of
not normal you could say whoa that was
so crazy
uh dumb is the same as stupid so that
was so
dumb oh that was dumb so you can express
something was
not smart not smart
and fun of course you can be positive
too oh that was so
fun that was so fun yeah so you can use
these to react
as well for example your friend says oh
i wish i had joined you on that camping
trip last month
you can say oh yeah i wish you could
have joined
too that was so fun
or it was so fun okay
all right so let’s look at an example of
this
another one i wish i hadn’t forgotten my
wallet at home this morning that was so
stupid
that was stupid so here’s how we use the
two
together we express our regret
our wish about the past and we use
this pattern to express our feeling
about it
okay all right so let’s finish up
with a couple of just real quick
expressions that you can use
this one i can’t believe
i did that i can’t believe i did that
use this expression when you feel
surprised
or shocked about your action so for
example
i forgot my wallet at home like oh no i
forgot my wallet at home
i can’t believe i did that at native
speed
because i can’t believe i did that i
can’t believe i did that
so we’re shocked at our own behavior
here’s another one when you make a bad
decision
when you make a bad decision everybody
makes bad decisions sometimes
when you do that you can say that was
not
a smart move that was not
a smart move move means decision here
so imagine like chess a board game or
something
you make a move we call this a move a
noun
like mu and when it’s a dangerous
move or you lose something it’s like oh
that was a bad decision that was not
a smart move that was not a smart move
okay so at native speed that sounds like
oh that was not a snart that was not a
snark but
that was not a smart move that was not a
smart move
another thing you can do is this use
sarcasm say
great job but with this face so
when you make a mistake uh when you
regret something you can say
great job great
so this is a very common way to respond
sarcastically you can use this too
lastly lastly let’s end on a positive
note yeah something positive
i’ll do things differently next time
i’ll do things differently in the future
so this is i will yeah so i’m using will
because i decide
in the moment so i will do
things so that means like this situation
the things in this situation
i’ll do things differently
next time i’ll do things differently
next time or i’ll do
in the future so this is a nice positive
expression to finish today
i think okay phew
be covered at all great job all right so
that’s everything
for this week i’m looking for your
questions i’ll wait for another
minute or so and uh we’ll wrap up there
so uh while we wait i will show you our
lesson boards again one more time so you
can take a screenshot
if you would like there you go okay so
in this lesson we
practiced uh using i wish i had and i
should have
and the negative forms we practiced
could have and couldn’t have
and we reviewed some good expressions to
react and express your feelings about
these past
situations so i hope that you got some
good grammar review especially with
a should have and could have if you want
some more information about those there
are many videos on the channel i’ll put
i’ll get some links
uh i will put some links some reference
links in the
youtube description facebook i cannot
update your links on facebook but i can
update
youtube so i will put some reference
links if you want to practice some of
these
grammar points a little more so please
check the youtube description
you can get everything there there’s the
link to the sale
you can find uh me there too if you want
to follow me on social media
all of that is there so uh we’ll wrap up
for today
lastly of course next week next week’s
information
next week is oh my gosh december 16th
only a couple weeks left until the end
of the gosh
so we are going to talk positively next
week
the topic i’ve chosen is how to talk
about
your accomplishments your
accomplishments means the things that
you achieved the things that you did
so how do you express that so this is
good for
job interviews in particular and also
how to politely express your
accomplishments the things that you
achieve like
when you want to share on like social
media for example
how do you do that like politely
yeah so we’re going to do that next week
so please join me again
and we will have a good time okay so we
have to finish
uh today’s lesson uh i don’t see any
other questions so i’ll finish there for
today so thank you as always for joining
our live lesson this week uh thank you
for liking and sharing the video of
course and thank you for your
great questions and your great example
sentences that was fantastic
so enjoy the