Question
Updated on
9 Apr 2015
- Japanese
-
English (US)
Question about English (US)
Please show me example sentences with "Would" and "could" I'm completely confused using these words. . Tell me as many daily expressions as possible.
Please show me example sentences with "Would" and "could" I'm completely confused using these words. . Tell me as many daily expressions as possible.
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10 Apr 2015
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- English (UK)
- English (US)
They're the past tense of "will" and "can", respectively.
"He says he will." becomes "He said he would."
"I think he can." becomes "I thought he could."
But they also are used in hypothetical contexts. Consider:
"I will eat."
What if used it in an "if" sentence?
"If I had food, I will eat." ☓
Wrong. "Will" here still means you absolutely will do it, but because it's hypothetical ("If I had food" implies there is no food), we can't use "will". This is where "would" comes in:
"If I had food, I would eat." ◯
It's also used when asking if someone could do something.
"Would you go to the store and get me some milk?"
("Will you go..." sounds quite rude and demanding.)
Similarly, "could" is used as a hypothetical "can". You're saying that you COULD do something, if the conditions were right.
"I can sing."
"I could sing (if I had a microphone/if my throat wasn't sore/if we had some music/but now I'm too old)."
We can also use it in our last "would" example:
"Could you go to the shop and get me some milk?"
Finally, there's a phrase you'll see a lot that uses both.
"I would if I could."
"Ah, shoot, the straps on my shoes broke."
"Just buy some new ones, that pair was getting old."
"I would if I could, but I don't have the money."
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- English (UK)
- English (US)
They're the past tense of "will" and "can", respectively.
"He says he will." becomes "He said he would."
"I think he can." becomes "I thought he could."
But they also are used in hypothetical contexts. Consider:
"I will eat."
What if used it in an "if" sentence?
"If I had food, I will eat." ☓
Wrong. "Will" here still means you absolutely will do it, but because it's hypothetical ("If I had food" implies there is no food), we can't use "will". This is where "would" comes in:
"If I had food, I would eat." ◯
It's also used when asking if someone could do something.
"Would you go to the store and get me some milk?"
("Will you go..." sounds quite rude and demanding.)
Similarly, "could" is used as a hypothetical "can". You're saying that you COULD do something, if the conditions were right.
"I can sing."
"I could sing (if I had a microphone/if my throat wasn't sore/if we had some music/but now I'm too old)."
We can also use it in our last "would" example:
"Could you go to the shop and get me some milk?"
Finally, there's a phrase you'll see a lot that uses both.
"I would if I could."
"Ah, shoot, the straps on my shoes broke."
"Just buy some new ones, that pair was getting old."
"I would if I could, but I don't have the money."
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- Japanese
Wow! Thank you so much for explaining that! I have still question. How about this situation? " If you love me, I will marry you." If he doesn't love me, then this sentence becomes "If you loved me, I would marry you." Is that right? Howevere, if I don't know whether he love me or not. Would you tell me again?
- English (UK)
- English (US)
Good catch. Both "If you love me, I will marry you." "If you loved me, I would marry you." have similar meanings. The first doesn't put any presumption on whether he loves you or not; both are equally likely. The second means you don't think he loves you, but this actually has nothing to do with the "would", but "loved". Because it becomes past, you presumably know the answer -- that's why "if you love me" is neutral, but "if you loved me" has a negative nuance.
Incidentally, if you had said "If you love me, I would marry you.", it puts emphasis on the "would" -- a sort of "you've implied that I wouldn't" sort of tone.
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- Japanese
Thank you! May I ask you again? I got a message from my pen pal, I didn't understand why he use "would" in this sentence. He wrote "He was quite adorable when he WOULD say these words.", "When my bird WOULD take a nap with me, he always stayed right by my side." In this sentence, what is "would" used. What does it mean?
- English (UK)
- English (US)
No problem! Remember that "when" can be used very similar to "if", and that's the use in these sentences. It's basically an "if" where the condition is known to happen, or in this case, to HAVE happened.
In other words, "when ~ would" is saying that something happened (not all the time, but some times), and this is what happened when it did. To rewrite those,
"He sometimes said these words, and when he did, he was adorable."
"My bird sometimes took a nap with me, and when he did, he always stayed right by side."
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- Japanese
Oh, I see. Thank you very much! Your explanation is really helpful to me!!!
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