I Wish ...

Week 20^th – 22^nd May

Hello, boys!  What’s the matter with you?

You let us down last week! Hadn’t been for Chus, I’d have been on my own the two classes!

I guess Eduardo will be snowed under (loaded) with work, studying for his exams. Good luck!

I haven’t heard from Gabi, but I expect us to see him this afternoon. Anyway, I hope his knee is better!

What did we do last week?

We corrected ‘Use of English’, test 2. I included the ‘key’ in the stack of copies I’m keeping for you!

But if you’d rather check the answers by yourselves, you can do it on this link

http://www.flo-joe.co.uk/cae/students/tests/   Test 2

The sections of this test paper were headed as ‘Sound Advice for Language Learners’, ‘Pre-History’, 21^st Century Workplace’, and, of course the sections of ‘Gapped Sentences’ and ‘Key Word Transformations’

We revised the uses of the unreal past.

Sometimes the verb tense we use does not coincide with the time. Bear in mind that “tense” isn’t the same as “time”.

Time: present, past or future.

I wish I had Sue’s telephone number. So, I could tell her about the lecture.

“Had” is past simple tense but the time it refers to is present. It refers to a present situation.

·         When Bill and I got married, his attitude to money amused me.

·         If Bill got promoted, our standard of living would go up.

·         I wish we were better off.

·         I was so jealous when I heard about Carol’s weekend in New York.

·         I think it’s time we moved to a bigger house.

·         I’d rather my daughters married a man with money.

·         I wish I’d married my first boyfriend!

·         If I’d married Sean, I would have a better standard of living.

Tenses In bold red really correspond to past time.

Tenses in bold green, use the past but refer to present or future situations.

 Summing up

·         Use wish + past simple to refer to things we would like to be different in the present or the future (but which are impossible or unlikely)

If only I knew the answer!

I wish I knew the answer.

·         Wish + past perfect, to talk about things which happened and we now regret.

(Instead of ‘wish’ you can use ‘if only’ in exactly the same way. Nevertheless, ‘if only’ is more emphatic).

 If only you hadn’t forgotten the map, we’d be there by now!

I wish you hadn’t forgotten the map.

·         We use would rather + subject + past tense to express preference.

I’d rather you left your dog outside. I’m allergic.

We can use would rather+ infinitive without ‘to’ when there is no change of subject.

I’d rather not talk about it.

·         We use the past simple after it’s time + subject to say that something has to be done now or in the near future.

It’s time (high time) the government did something about unemployment.

We can use it’s time +to+infinitive when we don’t want to specify the subject.

It’s time to finish this.

And we finished the classes reading and speaking about the topic ‘I wish I had married for money, not for love!’

See you this evening!