B2 COURSE

Unit 49 - Hopes & Wishes

VIDEO - How to express wishes in English

49.1. - What's the difference?

Wish
Express a feeling of regret about an event whose outcome is known or expected.

Hope
Express a feeling about an event whose outcome is unknown.

If you want to use “I hope” and “I wish” correctly, you just need to memorize these two phrases:
I hope I can…
I wish I could…

You may be wondering: why do English speakers use the present tense for “hope” and the past tense
for “wish”?

The secret is that “could” is not really a past tense. It looks like a past tense, but it’s secretly something
different. It’s the “unreal” aspect. In other words, it expresses something that’s not really true, or not
very likely.

We use “wish” to talk about things that are impossible, or things that probably won’t happen:

I wish I could fly.

I wish there were more hours in the day.
I wish I’d studied something a little more practical.

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Unit 49 - Hopes & Wishes
On the other hand, we use “I hope…” when there’s a good chance that something might happen. You
can use it to say what you want to happen in the future:

I hope this cake turns out good.

I hope we can still be friends.

49.2. - The grammar of “wish” and “hope”

Here’s how “wish” and “hope” look in present, past, and future.

Present
I hope this is the last mistake.
I wish my phone worked here.

Past
I hope Antonio got home safely.*
I wish you’d told me sooner.

* You can’t use “hope” to talk about something in the past, unless you don’t know what happened yet.
In this example, you haven’t heard whether Antonio got home safely.

Future
I hope it stops raining soon.*
I wish it would stop raining.

* You follow “hope” with the present tense of a verb, even when you’re talking about the future. So you
say “I hope it stops” instead of “I hope it will stop.”

And how do we express regrets in the present or

the past?

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Unit 49 - Hopes & Wishes

49.3. - Wish and If only

VIDEO - Learn English grammar | I wish and if only

Wish and ‘If only’ are both used to talk about regrets – things that we would like to change
either about the past or the present.

Talking about the present

If only I didn’t have so much homework I could go to the concert tonight. She has a lot of
homework and she can’t go to the concert.
I wish you didn’t live so far away.
I wish I knew what to do.

When we talk about present regrets, both wish and if only are followed by the past simple
tense. The past tense emphasises that we are talking about something ‘unreal’.

Talking about the present

I wish I’d studied harder when I was at school. He didn’t study harder when he was at school.
I wish I hadn’t eaten all that chocolate. I feel sick.
If only I’d known you were coming.

Both wish and if only are followed by the past perfect tense when we talk about past regrets.

Wish/if only and would

We use wish + would to talk about something in the present that we would like to change –
usually something that we find annoying.

I wish you wouldn’t borrow my clothes without asking.

I wish it would rain. The garden really needs some water.
I wish you’d give up smoking. it’s really bad for you.

We can only use wish + would to talk about things we can’t change.

So "I wish I wouldn’t eat so much chocolate" is not possible although we can say "I wish I didn’t
eat so much chocolate".

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Unit 49 - Hopes & Wishes