WILL OR WOULD

Question

Dear everybodyI am confused about using would or will for this situationMy friend are visiting my house tomorrow. My mother is saying this sentence to my father about me1)He will be happy to see his friend tomorrow.2)He would be happy to see his friend tomorrow.Does that both of 2 sentences are correct. " Will" shows that my mother are sure that I definitely will be happy to see my friend ( 100% percentage of believing that )?"Would" shown that my mother is less sure (90% percentage of believing that i will be happy to see my friend)?Many thanks in advance.

Anonymous · Accepted Answer

Hello,

You are correct. "Will" shows that you will definitely be happy. "Would" sounds less sure, and normally would be used with a follow up such as, "I would be happy to see them, but I have other plans." "Would" can also be used in question form. For example, "Would you be happy to see your friends tomorrow?"

CalifJim · Answer

LE HANH 2383I am confused about using would or will for this situation.

Yes. It may be because you don't yet have enough experience having conversations (or hearing conversations) in English with native speakers. would and will are not very easy compared to cat and dog or mother and father. To use would and will correctly, you have be familiar with the situations in which English speakers use them.

LE HANH 23831)He will be happy to see his friend tomorrow.

This is a prediction of how you will feel when you see your friend. It works fairly well in the given context.

LE HANH 23832)He would be happy to see his friend tomorrow.

This one doesn't quite work as a sentence in the given context. "would be happy to" occurs in a different sort of scenario. The father did not request anything from the mother, so this formula doesn't work well. This is illustrated in the dialog below.

On the phone:

— Hello? Is this Mrs. Abelton?
— Speaking.
— This is Mrs. Blackston. My son is a friend of your son's, and he would like to visit your son tomorrow. Is that all right?
— Oh, yes. I remember him now. Yes, that's OK. Have him come over tomorrow afternoon. I'm sure he would be happy to see his friend tomorrow.
— OK. I'll let him know.

Here "would be happy to" is the formula for agreeing to a suggested course of action. In this case the mother speaks for the son. If the son had answered the phone, of course he could have said, "I would be happy to see him tomorrow".

(By the way, you would not typically use "will be happy" in this scenario. You use "would" in order to appear very gracious in your acceptance of the plan.)

LE HANH 2383100% ~~percentage~~ ... 90% ~~percentage~~ ...

% means "percent", so we don't write "percent" or "percentage" after it.

I strongly recommend that you not think in percentages with regard to 'would' and 'will'. This is not how English speakers view these words. We don't just substitute one of these words for the other on the basis of some indefinite feeling about percentages of belief. It's more a matter of learning the situations in which each of these words is used.

CJ

WILL OR WOULD

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