When you use the PAST TENSE to talk about THE FUTURE | Unreal past [Weird English]

00:11

What soup is this?

00:13

it's mulligatawny

00:15

I don't want mulligatawny

00:17

Then why did you order it?

00:20

I wish I would have minestrone.  Do they have minestrone? 

00:24

Minestrone you idiot. They didn't have minestrone.  I've got cream of mushroom do you want that? 

00:31

Okay Here you are. By the way  

00:35

in English you don't say ‘I wish I would  have’ it's ‘I wish I had minestrone.’ 

00:42

Are you correcting my grammar again? 

00:45

Yes that's what I do.

00:48

Go on then.

00:50

If you talk about a present  wish you use a past tense. 

00:54

You use a past tense to talk about a present wish?

00:57

Yes in English you use a past tense in two ways;

01:01

one, to talk about past and two, to talk  about remote situations that don't feel  

01:08

real either because they are extremely unlikely  or they are impossible or out of your control  

01:16

such as conditionals. ‘if I had time I would  come tomorrow’. You're using a past tense  

01:25

but it's not a past time, it's called an unreal  past. A past tense is not the same as past time . 

01:34

With WISH use a past tense but it's not past  time.

01:39

Interesting so how do you use it with WISH?

01:42

You use WISH + past tense to talk about present  wishes that are impossible or out of your control  

01:50

for example ‘I wish I lived somewhere else.’  ‘I wish I didn't have to see your stupid face  

01:58

every day.’ if you're using CAN it becomes COULD.  COULD is the irregular past of CAN. ‘I wish  

02:09

I could see around corners.’ WOULD is the  irregular past of WILLl use ‘I wish you would’ for  

02:16

an imperative use of WISH when you want someone to  change their behaviour. instead of saying ‘hurry  

02:24

up’ say ‘I wish you would hurry up’ because I know  you can hurry up but that you're not doing it.  

02:32

If it's the verb to be then use WERE for  all persons. I wish I were. I wish she were  

02:40

etc but in formal English you'll hear if I was if.  she was okay ‘if I were you i'd get a haircut.’  

02:51

‘He wishes he were a woman’ or ‘he  wishes he was a woman’ informally

02:58

You know this mulligatawny is  really delicious you should try it. 

03:02

No I don't want to.

03:04

I wish you would, they make the best mulligatawny in Paris. Even in London  you can't find mulligatawny soup as good as this  

03:12

and I should know I've had a lot  of mulligatawny soup in my life. 

03:16

I wish you'd shut up about the mulligatawny soup

03:19

Okay so give me some examples with WISH

03:23

I wish I had a spoon instead of a fork for  the soup Gideon. I wish I were in Uruguay. 

03:34

Uruguay why Uruguay?

03:38

Uru-why not. No my my girlfriend lives in Uruguay.

03:44

Oh I see you're-a-guy and  she's a woman, what's her name? 

03:51

Ella if you must know. Is she nice? 

03:54

She's an helluva girl. I wish I could meet her. 

03:59

I wish I could have coffee with her now,  I wish I could speak with her tonight. 

04:07

Hold on, hold on no you don't say it like that.  The first sentence is correct ‘I wish I could have  

04:13

coffee with her now’ because you're in Paris  and she's in Montevideo so it's impossible  

04:19

but not the second sentence. ‘I  wish I could speak to her tonight’. 

04:23

Are you going to speak to her tonight?

04:25

If she's at home yes.

04:27

If the situation is possible you use  HOPE not WISH in this case it is possible  

04:34

so you say ‘I hope I can see her tonight.’ ‘I hope  to visit her soon.’ HOPE is usually followed by a  

04:42

present tense or an infinitive. It's much closer  to reality so we don't need the unreal past and  

04:49

its implied factual remoteness. I see so I hope the pizzas arrive  

04:57

soon or I hope I'm not allergic to panda  bears because it's probable that I'm not. 

05:06

Exactly what about the past of wish?  For example ‘I wish I didn't order  

05:14

mulligatawny soup’ is that correct?

05:17

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  

05:29

simple tense to talk about the past  that real estate is already taken  

05:35

so to talk about regrets in the past you would  use a past perfect. Just put HAD or HADN’T plus  

05:45

the past participle for example. I wish I  hadn't ‘I wish I hadn't eaten 12 doughnuts.’  

05:53

‘I wish I hadn't insulted my pilates instructor  because now she's really angry with me.’ 

06:00

Ah, I wish I hadn't ordered mulligatawny.  I wish I had called Ella last night. 

06:09

You got it

06:10

Are there any other cases when you use this unreal past?

06:16

Yes after IF ONLY which has a similar meaning to WISH. ‘If only I had more time.’  ‘if only I could change my job.’ 

06:27

Ok anything else?

06:29

Yes after IT’S TIME you can put an infinitive

06:34

‘it's time to leave’ but if you put a pronoun  or a name after IT’S TIME the verb will be  

06:41

in the past tense this also makes it sound more  urgent ‘it's time you lost some weight’, ‘it's  

06:49

time you did some exercise you you lazy bastard.’

06:53

It's time you shut up. it's time

06:57

my boss gave me a pay rise bloody  tight-fisted bastard. Anything else? 

07:05

A few other cases after SUPPOSE and WHAT  IF to talk about hypothetical situations.  

07:12

‘Suppose we went to Crete this summer? and  what if we took a boat around the harbour?  

07:22

You use unreal past after WOULD RATHER when it's  followed by a pronoun or a name WOULD RATHER has  

07:30

a similar meaning to prefer for example ‘shall we  go today?’ - ‘No, I'd rather we went tomorrow.’

07:43

i'd rather you didn't look at me like that. 

07:46

Like what? Like that it's scary.

07:52

HAD BETTER uses unreal past too. it's always  HAD BETTER never HAVE BETTER to talk about  

07:57

obligation with consequences. ‘Your pants are on  fire you'd better jump into the swimming pool.’ 

08:05

HAD BETTER is interesting  don't we have a video about it? 

08:08

Good question, yes we do, we do  indeed. Check it out up here. 

08:14

Excellent. I have to catch my flight  to Montevideo now so I had better go. 

08:21

I wish you would, yes I wish you would.

08:25

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  

08:31

then do let me know in the comments and if  you want to purchase a grammarian t-shirt  

08:36

then you can do so on the LetThemTalkTV  merch store stay healthy bye