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The Many Uses of ‘Would’ in
Everyday Speech, Part 1 |
Imagine that you are visiting a friend in Washington,
D.C. Your friend takes you to a popular restaurant. You
look at the menu and decide what you want: crab cakes.
Your friend is taking a little longer to decide. So,
when the server comes to your table, your friend tells
you to order first. You say:
Hi, I want the crab cakes, please.
Although you expressed your request clearly, it is best
to avoid using “want” when making polite requests.
Instead, we use “would like.”
This is just one of many uses for the modal “would” in
everyday speech. A modal is a helping verb that is
usually used with another verb to express ideas such as
possibility, necessity and permission.
Today, we will tell you some of the uses of “would.”
Polite requests & offers
Let’s return to polite requests. At restaurants and
other places where we pay for services, a common way to
make a request is using “would like.” This phrase means
“to wish to have.”
Listen to the polite version of the food order:
Hi, I would like the crab cakes.
We also use “would like” in polite offers. When we do
this, we use question form. Here is how the server might
respond:
Sounds good. Would you like anything else with that?
Yes, I’d like the side salad. Thanks.
Along with food orders at restaurants, you may also make
a polite request for someone to do something for you.
Listen to this line from a famous television ad for a
fruit-based spread:
Would you (please) pass the jelly?
To many native English speakers, using “will” in such a
request sounds demanding rather than polite or neutral.
There are other polite ways to ask someone to do
something. In an earlier program, we told you about
indirect questions. One of them includes the phrase
“Would you mind…?”
If we use this phrase, the jelly request becomes:
Would you mind passing the jelly?
Common “yes” responses to such a request include: “No,
not at all” and “Sure.”
Reported speech
Another everyday use of “would” is in reported speech.
We use reported speech to tell others what someone else
said – without using their exact words. In reported
speech clauses, “would” is the past tense of “will.”
First, listen to “will” in direct speech:
“I will bring the drinks,” Anita said.
When we change this to reported speech, we change “will”
to “would”:
Anita said (that) she would bring the drinks.
Another example of changing tenses in reported speech is
when talking about the weather. Imagine that you are
listening to a weather report on the radio. The reporter
might say:
It will be sunny in the morning, but we can expect rain
in the afternoon.
Here is how you might tell someone else about what you
heard:
The weather report said (that) it would be sunny this
morning but rainy this afternoon.
Imaginary situations
Another everyday usage of “would” is in unreal
conditionals. These conditionals describe what we would
do in imaginary -- or unreal -- situations.
You may remember from an earlier program that unreal
conditional statements have two parts: the if-clause and
the main clause. The word “would” goes in the main
clause. Here’s an example:
I would move to Japan if I spoke Japanese.
In this statement, the main clause comes before the
if-clause. But, the order of the clauses does not change
the statement’s meaning. You could also say, “If I spoke
Japanese, I would move to Japan.”
Sometimes, in casual, spoken English, we leave out the
if-clause in unreal conditional statements, but its
meaning is understood. One situation when we do this is
when giving advice:
How are you getting to Boston?
We’re flying out on Friday.
Nice! I would arrive two hours before departure. The DC
airport is usually crowded on Fridays.
The understood meaning is “If I were you, I would arrive
two hours before departure.”
Past unreal conditionals also contain “would.” But they
are more complex and require a strong understanding of
present and past perfect verb tenses. You can read more
about these conditionals in an earlier episode of
Everyday Grammar.
Repeated past actions
Let’s move to something a bit simpler. We also use
“would” in everyday speech to talk about repeated
actions in the past. This usage is called “past
habitual.” Here’s an example:
When I was little, I would play hopscotch with my
friends.
There are two rules for this usage. The first is that we
must state the time period in the first part of the
sentence -- “When I was little” for example. Second, we
only use “would” this way with action verbs, such as
“play” in the hopscotch example. We do not use it with
stative verbs, such as: live, be, know, think,
understand or want.
We could not, for example, say, “When I was little, I
would be happy playing hopscotch.”
Well, we’ve given you a lot of information. Would you
like to practice now?
Join us again soon to learn about more ways we use
“would.”
I’m Alice Bryant.
Alice Bryant wrote this story for Learning English.
Ashley Thompson was the editor. |
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