Level: beginner
We use will:
- to express beliefs about the present or future
- to talk about what people want to do or are willing to do
- to make promises, offers and requests.
would is the past tense form of will. Because it is a past tense, it is used:
- to talk about the past
- to talk about hypotheses (when we imagine something)
- for politeness.
Beliefs
We use will to express beliefs about the present or future:
John will be in his office. (present)
We'll be late. (future)
We will have to take the train. (future)
We use would as the past of will, to describe past beliefs about the future:
I thought we would be late, so we would have to take the train.
Willingness
We use will:
- to talk about what people want to do or are willing to do:
We'll see you tomorrow.
Perhaps Dad will lend me the car.
- to talk about typical behaviour, things that we often do (because we are willing to do them):
We always spend our holidays at our favourite hotel at the seaside. We'll get up early every morning and have a quick breakfast then we'll go across the road to the beach.
We use would as the past tense of will:
- to talk about what people wanted to do or were willing to do in the past:
We had a terrible night. The baby wouldn't go to sleep.
Dad wouldn't lend me the car, so we had to take the train.
- to talk about typical behaviour, things that we often did (because we were willing to do them) in the past:
When they were children they used to spend their holidays at their grandmother's at the seaside. They'd get up early every morning and have a quick breakfast. Then they'd run across the road to the beach.
Promises, offers and requests
We use I will or We will to make promises and offers:
I'll give you a lift home after the party.
We'll come and see you next week.
We use Will you … ? or Would you … ? to make requests:
Will you carry this for me, please?
Would you please be quiet?
- will and would 1
- will and would 2
- will and would 3
Level: intermediate
Hypotheses and conditionals
We use will in conditionals to say what we think will happen in the present or future:
I'll give her a call if I can find her number.
You won't get in unless you have a ticket.
We use would to make hypotheses:
- when we imagine a situation:
It would be very expensive to stay in a hotel.
I would give you a lift, but my wife has the car today.
- in conditionals:
I would give her a call if I could find her number.
If I had the money, I'd buy a new car.
You would lose weight if you took more exercise.
If he got a new job, he would probably make more money.
What if he lost his job? What would happen then?
We also use conditionals to give advice :
Dan will help you if you ask him.
Past tenses are more polite:
Dan would help you if you asked him.
- will and would: hypotheses and conditionals
See also: Verbs in time clauses and conditionals
Level: beginner
Expressions with would
We use:
- would you…, would you mind (not) -ing for requests:
Would you carry this for me, please?
Would you mind carrying this?
Would you mind not telling him until tomorrow?
- would you like ..., would you like to ... for offers and invitations:
Would you like another drink?
Would you like to come round tomorrow?
- I would like …, I'd like … (you)(to) ... to say what we want or what we want to do:
I'd like that one, please.
I'd like to go home now.
- I'd rather… (= I would rather) to say what we prefer:
I'd rather have the new one, not the old one.
I don't want another drink. I'd rather go home.
- I would think, I would imagine, I'd guess to give an opinion when we are not sure or when we want to be polite:
It's very difficult, I would imagine.
I would think that's the right answer.
- Expressions with would 1
- Expressions with would 2
Hello Rsb
No, 'suspend' is not an ergative verb -- it is only transitive. In your first sentence, it is clearly active. I'm afraid that the second sentence is not correct in standard British English.
All the best
Kirk
The LearnEnglish Team
Hello Rsb,
If suspended is a verb then it is being used as part of a passive construction (be + past participle) and so it cannot be an intransitive verb. Intransitive verbs have no object and so cannot be used to form passives.
You could also see suspended as an adjective complement (be + adjective).
As it stands, without any other context, it is ambiguous whether this is a passive construction or an adjective complement. It's also unimportant. Nothing changes in terms of the meaning, however you choose to label the item.
Peter
The LearnEnglish Team
Hi Rsb,
The majority of verbs in English are transitive. You can use any dictionary to check a verb, as this is one of the pieces of information included in each entry.
We don't have a list of transitive verbs on the site but you should be able to find such lists quickly with an internet search.
Peter
The LearnEnglish Team
Hello Rsb,
The verb is intransitive so there's no reason to think of it as an action on anything. I think the verb separate here describes a change in state rather than an action performed, though it's really a question of interpretation and I don't think the actual description is particularly important to understanding the phrase and its use.
I have two requests for future questions you might have. First, can you please post them as individual questions rather than replies to replies. Long threads of questions like this drive all other questions from the page and mean that other users cannot see other parts of the comments section. Second, please try to post questions on relevant pages. This page deals with will and would, not transitive and intransitive verbs.
Peter
The LearnEnglish Team
Hello Ashkan0_0
1) It's not really a question of the speaker's certainty about Jack coming or not, but rather of whether Jack will be invited. The speaker has chosen to speak about a hypothetical future (a future in which 'you' has invited Jack). The complete thought is 'I'm sure he would come if you invited him'. The speaker could have chosen to say what you suggest, but here did not.
2) A or B are possible for the situation you describe; which one would be better depends on details about the situation and the relationship between the speakers that I don't know, but in general you could use either one.
All the best
Kirk
The LearnEnglish Team
Hello Baki,
The negative for past simple verbs is formed with didn't, as you say.
Wouldn't suggests refual in the past. We use it sometimes when we want to talk about an inanimate object as if it were a person (anthropomorphism) and could make decisions. Thus, we sometimes say sentences like these:
These really mean 'my car refused to start' and 'my computer didn't want to turn on'.
Peter
The LearnEnglish Team
Hello Nina
That's what is called a second conditional structure. The verb 'didn't do' is a past subjunctive (though most teachers call it a past simple form, because it is identical in form to the past simple). This kind of conditional speaks about an imaginary situation. In other words, if you say this, it means that testing is in fact being done and it suggests that there are many cases.
You can read more about this on our Conditionals 1 page.
All the best
Kirk
The LearnEnglish Team
Hello Amit shukla
Could you please provide some context for the sentences? Verb forms can mean different things depending on the context they are used in.
All the best
Kirk
The LearnEnglish Team
Hello CareBears07
No, I'm afraid that's not correct -- I would recommend you say 'I would work doubly hard' instead. Using 'were' clearly sets up a hypothetical situation, and so it's not correct to use 'will' here.
You might find our Conditionals 1 page helpful.
All the best
Kirk
The LearnEnglish Team
Hi CareBears07,
No, that does not work.
If you were to... is used for unlikely events. It is an alternative to a past form in the if-clause. Thus would is needed in the main clause, not will.
Note that there is a difference between the past form and the were to form.
We can use a past verb to describe unlikely or impossible events/states:
However, we can only use were to to describe unlikely events/states, not impossible ones.
Peter
The LearnEnglish Team
Hello CareBears07
Thanks for the suggestion! We'll take that into consideration.
All the best
Kirk
The LearnEnglish Team
Hello Rsb,
I'm afraid I don't understand your distinction here. All of these actions have both physical and mental aspects.
To be honest, I don't think this question is about language at all. It's a biological or philosophical question.
Peter
The LearnEnglish Team
Hello Rsb
As Peter said, this is not really a grammatical category. You might find that some teachers or grammars use it, but you'd have to ask them this question. It's not a category that I would use while teaching.
All the best
Kirk
The LearnEnglish Team
Hello Rsb
In most cases, 'would have' + past participle is the form we use to speak about a past hypothetical action, and 'would' + base form is used to speak about a present or future hypothetical.
I'd suggest you have a look at our Conditionals 1 and 2 pages, where you can see more examples of 'would' and 'would have' used in this way.
Hope this helps.
All the best
Kirk
The LearnEnglish Team
Hi atya
I'm afraid I can't really say without knowing the context, but it could be, for example, that I'm giving someone a recommendation, or making a hypothesis about an imaginary situation (e.g. if someone asked me why customers are complaining about service).
All the best
Kirk
The LearnEnglish Team
Hello Aditya Nair
As is explained above, 'would' has many different uses and can be used to refer to different times or even times that, in a sense, don't exist -- for example, hypothetical or imaginary times. It is also often used to make requests (e.g. 'I would like a coffee, please'), which refers to your wishes in the present.
As you can see, modals verbs can be used to mean many different things.
All the best
Kirk
The LearnEnglish Team
Hello anna from germany
It looks to me as if the writer left out the word 'like' ('would like you to start'). As it is, the sentence is not correct, so please don't take it as an example!
All the best
Kirk
The LearnEnglish Team
Hello Amit
In this sentence, 'would' refers to a future time from the perspective of the past. It is used in the same way as the example sentence 'I thought we would be late, so we would have to take the train' (above on this page, in the Beliefs section).
In general, I wouldn't recommend using the idea of 'possibility' as a way of thinking about the modal verb 'would'.
All the best
Kirk
The LearnEnglish Team
Hello kiranpn,
I don't know the context in which those sentences appear so it's hard for me to comment. However, the first example looks like a prediction to me. We can use would just as we can use will to make predictions about the present. Will expresses more certainty.
His accent was Irish? Then he'll be John. [will]
His accent was Irish? Then he'd be John. [would]
The second example is likely to be similar, but without any context I can't say more.
Peter
The LearnEnglish Team
Hi Sara_Mar,
Would is used in this example to describe a hypothetical situation. The phrase to show up has the meaning in order to show up. The sentence describes what would be necessary in order to achieve a hypothetical result.
The grammatical subject of would need to be sustained is fossil fuel use. I agree that this is not semantically accurate as, as you say, what needs to be maintained is the decline rather than just the use. The sentence should be phrased as follows:
Peter
The LearnEnglish Team
Hi shantanu,
Both sentences are perfectly correct. You can use whichever you prefer.
Peter
The LearnEnglish Team
Hello Shantanu
We have a couple of pages with advice on learning English and on using the site. You can find them here:
To improve you need to practise, practise and practise some more!
Below are a few tips that might be useful.
To improve your vocabulary:
The more you read -- magazines and newspapers, journals, short stories, novels, poems... in fact, whatever genre or kind of writing interests you -- the better, and you can find an inexhaustible supply on the internet, of course.
We also recommend very strongly that you start (if you haven't already) a personal vocabulary book. Organise it by topic (sports, work, appearance, finance etc) and add new words and phrases to it as you listen, watch and read in English.
Once you have built up a small collection of items in your vocabulary book, you can use it to test yourself so you can see how well you memorise the items. Cover the meanings and/or examples and try to recall them, or to translate the words and phrases into your own language.
To improve your speaking and listening:
The most important thing you can do is to speak English as often as possible. To do this a partner is very helpful, so think about the people you know and consider if any of them could be a practice partner for you. It may be that you know someone else who is also learning English and who would like to practise with you, or perhaps you know some people who do not speak your language but do speak English.
However, if you do not have a practice partner it does not mean that you cannot practise because it is possible to practise alone. Just speaking English to yourself while you are at home, going about your normal daily activities, can help a great deal with your fluency and can help you to feel more confident, which will help you to cut down your hesitating.
You can also use the audio and video materials here on LearnEnglish to improve your fluency. After doing the exercises, try listening with the transcript (listening and reading). Then try saying the text yourself, and finally try saying it with (and at the same speed as) the recording. This will help you to develop speed in your speech, which is a key component of fluency. You'll also pick up a lot of language as chunks - words which are often used together in set phrases - which you can use to communicate with less hesitation.
How can I improve my writing?
How to write depends upon what kind of writing you want to do, for what purpose you are writing and who the recipient is. Different kinds of writing require different language and different ways of organising the text, so the first thing to do is to take a look at as many different texts as you can. In general, to improve your writing it's important to read and write as much as possible, so keep an eye out for good examples of letters, articles and so on. Using the internet to read magazines, newspapers and other text-types from online media is a good idea.
Whatever you do, try to spend at least 15 minutes several days per week reading and/or writing. Remember also that written texts are usually well organised - unlike a lot of speech, which can often be haphazard and disorganised. Therefore it's important to write in an organised way: start by collecting your thoughts, then plan how you are going to organise them, then write a first draft. After that, check (or get someone else to check) your draft before writing your final version. Research shows that good writers constantly review their work and amend it, so this is a good model.
It's hard for us to give individual advice to you without knowing your strengths and weaknesses and your goals, but I hope the tips and suggestions above are helpful.
All the best
Kirk
The LearnEnglish Team
Hello sameer
In all of the sentences from the dictionary that you included in your comment, 'would' is speaking about a hypothetical situation. In other words, these are situations that are not real -- for example, we don't plan to have a beach party now -- and instead we are imagining them. In these cases, 'would' indicates that these situations are imagined. It's not that they are possible or impossible -- it's that we are showing that we aren't thinking of them as real situations, at least for the moment.
In some of them, 'will' could also be correct, but it changes the meaning. For example, the first sentence with 'would' means that you don't expect the person you are talking to is actually going to that place. But if you changed it to 'will', it means you expect the person is going there -- perhaps they told you about their plans for next week, for example.
As for the examples from the newspapers, I can't say for sure without knowing the context. But, for example, 1 could be talking about a hypothetical law -- one that legislators are considering, but which has not yet been passed. In 2, the deal being talked about has not yet been made -- it is still hypothetical at the time this report was written. This is why 'would' is correct, but 'will' is not.
Does that help you make sense of it?
All the best
Kirk
The LearnEnglish Team