Will/would
What’s the difference between saying: Will you have time to meet me today?
and
Would you have time to meet me this today?
Top answer
Would is more polite, more tentative. Clive
- Would is more polite, more tentative.
- Clive
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The first sentence, "Will you have time to meet me today?", with "will," is direct and no-nonsense: the speaker wants to know if you have time to meet, and he wants a straightforward answer.
In the second sentence, "Would you have time to meet me today?", the substitution of the modal "would" for "will", injects an element of uncertainty into the question. The speaker is almost a
0To add to what Clive and anonymous wrote:
As a general rule, we use direct language when we are fairly certain the response will be positive; we use indirect language when there is a chance the response will be negative. Other languages do this in similar ways.
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