What soup is this?
it's mulligatawny
I don't want mulligatawny
Then why did you order it?
I wish I would have minestrone. Do they have minestrone?
Minestrone you idiot. They didn't have minestrone. I've got cream of mushroom do you want that?
Okay Here you are. By the way
in English you don't say ‘I wish I would have’ it's ‘I wish I had minestrone.’
Are you correcting my grammar again?
Yes that's what I do.
Go on then.
If you talk about a present wish you use a past tense.
You use a past tense to talk about a present wish?
Yes in English you use a past tense in two ways;
one, to talk about past and two, to talk about remote situations that don't feel
real either because they are extremely unlikely or they are impossible or out of your control
such as conditionals. ‘if I had time I would come tomorrow’. You're using a past tense
but it's not a past time, it's called an unreal past. A past tense is not the same as past time .
With WISH use a past tense but it's not past time.
Interesting so how do you use it with WISH?
You use WISH + past tense to talk about present wishes that are impossible or out of your control
for example ‘I wish I lived somewhere else.’ ‘I wish I didn't have to see your stupid face
every day.’ if you're using CAN it becomes COULD. COULD is the irregular past of CAN. ‘I wish
I could see around corners.’ WOULD is the irregular past of WILLl use ‘I wish you would’ for
an imperative use of WISH when you want someone to change their behaviour. instead of saying ‘hurry
up’ say ‘I wish you would hurry up’ because I know you can hurry up but that you're not doing it.
If it's the verb to be then use WERE for all persons. I wish I were. I wish she were
etc but in formal English you'll hear if I was if. she was okay ‘if I were you i'd get a haircut.’
‘He wishes he were a woman’ or ‘he wishes he was a woman’ informally
You know this mulligatawny is really delicious you should try it.
No I don't want to.
I wish you would, they make the best mulligatawny in Paris. Even in London you can't find mulligatawny soup as good as this
and I should know I've had a lot of mulligatawny soup in my life.
I wish you'd shut up about the mulligatawny soup
Okay so give me some examples with WISH
I wish I had a spoon instead of a fork for the soup Gideon. I wish I were in Uruguay.
Uruguay why Uruguay?
Uru-why not. No my my girlfriend lives in Uruguay.
Oh I see you're-a-guy and she's a woman, what's her name?
Ella if you must know. Is she nice?
She's an helluva girl. I wish I could meet her.
I wish I could have coffee with her now, I wish I could speak with her tonight.
Hold on, hold on no you don't say it like that. The first sentence is correct ‘I wish I could have
coffee with her now’ because you're in Paris and she's in Montevideo so it's impossible
but not the second sentence. ‘I wish I could speak to her tonight’.
Are you going to speak to her tonight?
If she's at home yes.
If the situation is possible you use HOPE not WISH in this case it is possible
so you say ‘I hope I can see her tonight.’ ‘I hope to visit her soon.’ HOPE is usually followed by a
present tense or an infinitive. It's much closer to reality so we don't need the unreal past and
its implied factual remoteness. I see so I hope the pizzas arrive
soon or I hope I'm not allergic to panda bears because it's probable that I'm not.
Exactly what about the past of wish? For example ‘I wish I didn't order
mulligatawny soup’ is that correct?
No that's not correct. For the past it's confusing but if you use a past tense you’re talking about the present remember? you can't use the past
simple tense to talk about the past that real estate is already taken
so to talk about regrets in the past you would use a past perfect. Just put HAD or HADN’T plus
the past participle for example. I wish I hadn't ‘I wish I hadn't eaten 12 doughnuts.’
‘I wish I hadn't insulted my pilates instructor because now she's really angry with me.’
Ah, I wish I hadn't ordered mulligatawny. I wish I had called Ella last night.
You got it
Are there any other cases when you use this unreal past?
Yes after IF ONLY which has a similar meaning to WISH. ‘If only I had more time.’ ‘if only I could change my job.’
Ok anything else?
Yes after IT’S TIME you can put an infinitive
‘it's time to leave’ but if you put a pronoun or a name after IT’S TIME the verb will be
in the past tense this also makes it sound more urgent ‘it's time you lost some weight’, ‘it's
time you did some exercise you you lazy bastard.’
It's time you shut up. it's time
my boss gave me a pay rise bloody tight-fisted bastard. Anything else?
A few other cases after SUPPOSE and WHAT IF to talk about hypothetical situations.
‘Suppose we went to Crete this summer? and what if we took a boat around the harbour?
You use unreal past after WOULD RATHER when it's followed by a pronoun or a name WOULD RATHER has
a similar meaning to prefer for example ‘shall we go today?’ - ‘No, I'd rather we went tomorrow.’
i'd rather you didn't look at me like that.
Like what? Like that it's scary.
HAD BETTER uses unreal past too. it's always HAD BETTER never HAVE BETTER to talk about
obligation with consequences. ‘Your pants are on fire you'd better jump into the swimming pool.’
HAD BETTER is interesting don't we have a video about it?
Good question, yes we do, we do indeed. Check it out up here.
Excellent. I have to catch my flight to Montevideo now so I had better go.
I wish you would, yes I wish you would.
Greetings grammarians, I hope you enjoyed that video and if there are any grammar points that you want me to cover in a future video
then do let me know in the comments and if you want to purchase a grammarian t-shirt
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