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Expressing Wish: A Current (Present)

The document discusses three ways to express wishes in English depending on the situation: 1) Using "were" and "had" to express a current wish that a present situation was different, 2) Using "had" to express regret that a past situation was different, and 3) Using "would" to express a desire for someone to do or stop doing something in the future. It provides examples for each case and an exercise to rewrite sentences to match the structure of wishes.

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Abdechakour Hadji
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1K views

Expressing Wish: A Current (Present)

The document discusses three ways to express wishes in English depending on the situation: 1) Using "were" and "had" to express a current wish that a present situation was different, 2) Using "had" to express regret that a past situation was different, and 3) Using "would" to express a desire for someone to do or stop doing something in the future. It provides examples for each case and an exercise to rewrite sentences to match the structure of wishes.

Uploaded by

Abdechakour Hadji
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Expressing wish

When you wish that means you want to something or a situation to be different
There are three different ways of expressing wish depending on the situation
1- When you wish a current (present) situation to be different
For example:

wishes she were tall


wishes he had money
Someone who is short

or

someone who doesnt have money

As you notice if we are supposed to express a current wish. We use the past simple of the verb
I am not tall

I wish I were taller

I dont have money

I wish I had money

2- When you wish a past situation to be different. We call this regret


- the verb in this case is in the past perfect
I didnt study translation
I wish I had studied translation
I was careless. I lost my keys
I wish I hadnt been careless
3- As you want someone to do something or stop doing it because you think he can we call
this a desire
- We use would + the verb (stem) here because we mean the future
- Some time expressions for the future are ( someday, one day, soon, tomorrow, the next
week/month/yearect)
You want someone to stop shouting
I wish he would stop shouting / I wish he
wouldnt shout
You wish the government to ban smoking in public
I wish the government would
ban smoking in public

Exercise:
Re-write sentence A so that it means the same as sentence B
A- The corrupt official is in the prison now
B- He wishes..
A- You want government to punish corrupt officials
B- I wish .
A- The ministry didnt implement ethics at schools.
B- I wish.
A- You want the army to watch the borders
B- I wish..
A- Law makers didnt take strict measures to fight bribery.
B- I wish.....
A- I dont have power to fight unethical behaviors
B- I wish..
A- Someone wish to live in corruption-free country soon
B- If only.
A- The criminal wish the judge to give him a second chance
B- He wishes..
A- He regretting having stolen the public funds
B- He wishes
A- Someone wishing to live without nepotism someday
B- He wishes.
A- Someone wishing people to stop eating fast food.
B- I wish..
A- Someone wishing parliament to pass strict laws against corruption.
B- If only..

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