‘Will’ and ‘would’.
These two verbs cause a lot of confusion for English learners.
So, in this video, I’m going to clear up that confusion for you.
I will teach you the difference between these two modal verbs, and I’ll show you how to
use them correctly without making mistakes.
As always, there is a quiz at the end to test your understanding.
Alright, there are three main differences between ‘will’ and ‘would’.
Let’s start with the most basic use of the two verbs.
We use the verb ‘will’ to talk about the future.
One very common use is to make a prediction, or say what we expect to happen in the future.
Take this sentence: We will be in Hong Kong by 8 pm tomorrow.
That means, we are traveling to Hong Kong and I expect that if our flight is on time,
we will be there by 8 o’ clock tomorrow night.
This next sentence also talks about the future but it’s a little different.
I’m not hungry, so I will just have an orange juice.
Imagine that you’re sitting in a restaurant with a friend and you say this.
Here, you’re not talking about the distant future, you’re talking about the immediate
future.
In other words, here ‘will’ is used to express a decision that you have made.
We also use ‘will’ to make a promise to someone: I’ll send you all the details by
email.
So, I’m promising to do something for you.
OK, so that’s ‘will’.
What about ‘would’?
Well, ‘would’ is simply the past tense form of ‘will’.
So imagine that we didn’t reach Hong Kong by 8 pm.
Our flight was late.
We only reached there at 2 in the morning.
So then, we might look back at the past and say: We thought we would be in Hong Kong by
8 pm.
But that didn’t happen.
We often use ‘would’ when we report a past conversation – that is, we say what
someone said in the past.
For example: I wasn’t hungry, so I said that I would just have an orange juice.
It’s the same sentence that we saw with ‘will’, but changed to the past tense.
And the last sentence becomes: She said she would send me all the details by email.
OK, now you know the basic use of ‘will’ and ‘would’.
So let’s look at a more challenging use of these two verbs.
This is the area of most confusion for people, and it is conditionals.
That means sentences where you have a condition and a result.
For example: If it rains tomorrow, I’ll bring my umbrella.
That’s pretty easy.
You see that I’m talking about something I will do in the future (“I’ll bring my
umbrella”), but only on one condition – “if it rains.”
Here’s another one: If Jared stops playing video games, his grades will improve.
What do you understand by that?
Well, it means that Jared probably spends a lot of time playing video games, so his
grades are not very good.
But if he stops playing video games, then he can spend more time studying, and we expect
that his grades will improve.
In both of these sentences, we’ve used ‘will’.
And that is because both of these are real situations (these are both possible).
This type of sentence is called the first conditional.
But sometimes, we want to talk about imaginary or unreal situations.
For example: If I had wings, I would fly all over the world.
Obviously, this is not possible.
I can’t grow wings, so all I’m doing is I’m using my imagination.
Notice that we have used the past tense throughout this sentence – ‘If I had wings,’ – ‘I
would fly’.
We’re not talking about the past, but this past tense, including ‘would’, just shows
that this is not real – it’s imaginary.
Now, let’s go back to Jared and his video game addiction.
What if I said: If Jared stopped playing video games, his grades would improve.
It’s similar to the sentence with ‘will’, but using the past tense (with ‘would’)
just shows that I don’t think this is possible.
Jared is not going to stop, he’s just going to keep playing video games, and his grades
are never going to improve.
Remember, with ‘will’ it’s possible, with ‘would’ it’s not possible, it’s
imaginary.
And this type of sentence is called the second conditional.
But there’s one more – the third conditional.
This is used to talk about past conditions.
Imagine that Jared had his exam, and as we expected, his grades were poor.
So then we can say: If Jared had stopped playing video games, his grades would have improved.
So here, we’re talking about a condition in the past.
Notice that we say ‘had stopped’ (this is the past perfect tense) in the condition,
and we use ‘would have’ in the result.
Here’s one final example for you: If Nancy had gone to law school, she would have become
a lawyer.
What does it mean?
Did Nancy go to law school?
No, her parents advised her to go to law school, but she didn’t listen to them, so unfortunately,
she didn’t become a lawyer.
So you can see from these sentences that we only use ‘will’ when we talk about real,
possible situations.
For imaginary conditionals, we use ‘would’.
Now, I know that this topic can be a little tricky, so I have full lessons just on conditionals
to help you understand them.
You will find the links in the description below.
OK, let’s now turn to the final difference between ‘will’ and ‘would’ and that
is in using polite expressions.
For the purpose of politeness, we use ‘would’ and not ‘will’.
So there are some special phrases with ‘would’ that you should memorize: The first is ‘Would
you mind…?’
For example: “Would you mind lending me some money?”
This sentence is a request, and it’s a very polite request.
Notice that after ‘would you mind’ we have an ‘ing’ form – ‘lending’.
This is the correct form when you want to make requests with this expression.
But you can also use it to ask for permission.
For this, you would say ‘Would you mind if’ plus a past tense: “Would you mind
if I left a little early tomorrow?”
You might say this to your boss at work.
Even though we have a past tense verb, that’s just a grammar rule, we’re still asking
for permission for the future.
The phrase ‘Would it be OK if…?’ is also used to ask for permission: “Would
it be OK if I left a little early tomorrow?”
Same meaning.
Another common phrase is ‘Would you like…?’
and this is used to make offers: Would you like some more milk in your coffee?
Would you like to come along with us?
Would you like me to give you a ride home?
All of these are offers.
And finally, to express wants, to say “I want this”, we use the polite expression
– ‘I would like…’
I would like another cookie, please.
I would like to buy a wedding present for a friend of mine.
The important point is that in all of these sentences, you cannot use ‘will’.
Remember that these are fixed expressions – you must use ‘would’ in all of them,
so it’s a good idea to memorize them all.
OK, if you’re ready, it’s now time for the quiz to see if you can use ‘will’
and ‘would’ correctly.
On the screen, there are eight sentences.
In each one, I want you to fill in the gap with ‘will’ or ‘would’.
Stop the video, think about your answers, then play the video again and check.
Alright, here are the answers.
How many did you get right?
Let me know in the comments section.
If you have any questions about these, you can ask me in the comments as well.
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Happy learning and I will see you in another lesson soon.