Wish

Question

Dear teachers,

Are the following sentences correct ? What do they mean exactly?

1- I wish I had learnt Spanish at school.

2- I wish I learnt Spanish at school.

3- I wish I understood what they a) said / b) were saying. (?)

4- She wishes we could come = She wishes us to come (?)

5- I wished he came.

6- It was high time for us to have gone / to go (?).

Thank you for your help.

Best wishes,
Hela

Paco2004 · Accepted Answer

I'm not a teacher but I'll try to answer the questions. I hope moderators would correct my answers if they are wrong.

[1] I wish I had learnt Spanish at school. ---> The truth is you did not learn Spanish at school.
[2] I wish I learnt Spanish at school. ---> The truth is you are not learning Spanish at school.
[3a] I wish I understood what they said. ---> The truth is you do not understand what they said in the past.
[3b] I wish I understood what they are saying. ---> The truth is you do not understand what they are now saying.
[4a] She wishes we could come. ---> She wants you to come but you can't.
[4b] She wishes us to come ---> She wants you to come. Neutral about whether you can or not.
[5] I wished he came. ---> You wanted him to come at a past time but the truth is he did not come then.
[6] It was high time for us to go.

paco

Hela · Answer

Thanks Paco for your help. I have a couple of sentences to add to my list and I hope a teacher would confirm your explanations.

7) It WAS time we went home. ('had gone' would be wrong?)

8) In case someone should ask / asked ? I was never here.

9) We warned them for fear (that) they should fall.

10) We warned them so that they shouldn’t fall.

See you,
Hela

Mister Micawber · Answer

Paco's exegesis sounds good to me, certainly.

7) 'It was time we went home.'-- 'We went home' modifies 'time': both occur simultaneously, so 'had gone' would be wrong.

8) 'In case someone should ask, I was never here.'-- If they had asked already, there would logically be no 'in case'. (I presume that your dilemma is between 'asked' and 'should ask'; 'X should asked' is impossible on other grounds.)

9) 'We warned them for fear (that) they should fall.'-- Both with and without the 'that' are fine; it is clear both ways.

10) 'We warned them so that they wouldn’t fall.'-- shall/should is for first person only in this usage.

Hela · Answer

Hello Mr Micawber,

I'm afraid I didn't understand your point regarding sentence 8). Should I say "In case someone ASKED or SHOULD ASKED, I was never here." and why.

Regarding sentence 10), how can I know when to use "should" (form of the subjuntive) or "would"?

Thank you in advance for your help.
Hela

Mister Micawber · Answer

In your ( 8) X 'In case someone ASKED, I was never here.'-- 'in case' means 'if' (possibility); but 'asked' is past tense (the asking already happened), so there is no logical possibility that the listener could subsequently tell them that 'she was never here'!

Your only choice is 'in case someone SHOULD ASK, I was never here'. Then, the asking remains in the future and there is still a possibility for the listener to say 'she was never here'.

In (10), the correct choices are:

'We warned them so that they wouldn't fall.'
They warned us so that we shouldn't / wouldn't fall.' ('we' is first person plural)

In your sentence, as I said previously, 'shall/should' is for first person only in this usage' (and is generally considered formal as such).

'Would/should' here is not a question of the subjunctive. 'Should' appears as a substitute or alternate expression for the mandative subjunctive in such sentences as 'they insisted that I should hurry up' (where the subjunctive form is 'they insisted that I hurry up'). 'Would/should' also appear in conditional sentences, some of which also contain subjunctive forms, and this may be the source of your confusion. Here are two more examples, with the subjunctive form of 'be' in the 'if'-clause:

'If I were you, I should/would hurry up.' ('I' is first person singular)
'If he were you, he would hurry up.'

Hela · Answer

Thank you very very much, Mr Micawber.

Now I understand better. It's true I tend to confuse the subjunctive with the conditional.

A/ after IF-CLAUSES we can have either the conditional mood or the subjunctive, is that right?

1) If I / he WERE (past subj) rich, I would /should // he would (only) (= present conditional?) buy a yacht (spelling???).

2) If he COMES (indicative), we will / shall // they will (future) go and sail on the Thames.

3) If he HAD a yacht (past subj = he doesn't have one?), we would/should / he would (only) (= present conditional?) sail across the Mediterranean.

4) If he HAD HAD (perfect subj?) a boat, we would (should?) have sailed (past condtitional?) across the Meditarranean Sea.

B/ Do we sometimes need a subjunctive after the expression SO THAT ?

Thanks you in advance for your patience.
Hela

Mister Micawber · Answer

A/ In 'if'-clauses of conditional sentences we can have either the subjunctive or indicative mood:

If I catch you (present indicative), I will eat you.
If I caught you (present subjunctive), I would eat you.

1) If I / he were (present subjunctive) rich, I would /should // he would (only) (conditional) buy a yacht.

2) If he comes (present indicative), we will / shall // they will (future) go and sail on the Thames.

3) If he had a yacht (present subjunctive = he doesn't have one), we would/should // he would (only) (conditional) sail across the Mediterranean.

4) If he had had (past subjunctive) a boat, we would/should have sailed (perfect conditional) across the Mediterranean Sea.

B/ Do we sometimes need a subjunctive after the expression SO THAT ?

Are you speaking of the archaic form 'so that he arrive safely, he could not care of the condition of his yacht'?

Hela · Answer

Good morning Mr Micawber,

Internet is just fantastic! It's as if I HAD an English teacher with me at home!

A/ I thought that :

1) the PRESENT subjunctive had the form of the infinitive, just as in "COME what it may!" "*** SAVE the Queen" etc.

2) the PAST subjunctive had the form of the simple past as in "I wish I WERE..."

3) the PERFECT subjunctive had the form ot the past perfect of the indicative as in "If I HAD STUDIED my grammar at school, I wouldn't be bothering Mr Micawber today!"

B/ (Do we sometimes need a subjunctive after the expression SO THAT ?)

"Are you speaking of the archaic form 'so that he arrive safely, he could not care of the condition of his yacht'?"

Yes, I am indeed!

Have a very nice weekend,
Hela

PS: I'll ask you more questions on the subjunctive later this academic year because I have so many in store!

Hela · Answer

Hello everyone,

Here I am again with questions on the subjunctive:

A/ Last time we saw that a) "It WAS high time we went" was correct, but what does it mean exactly? And is b) "It WAS (high) time we had gone" correct ? If yes, what would it mean?

B/ Are the following sentences correct ? If not, why?

1) a) Iwould rather you told her the truth. (now or tomorrow)
(je préfèrerais que vous lui disiez la vérité)

b) I would rather you had told her the truth. (yesterday)
(J'aurais aimé / préféré que vous lui ayez dit la vérité)

2) a) Tom would rather read than talk. (bare infinitive)
(Tom préfère lire plutôt que parler)

b) Tom would rather have read than talked ??? (perfect infinitive)
(Tom aurait préféré lire plutôt que parler)?

Would you have some better sentences with the infinitive forms, please? And for those who understand French I just put the translation to check if I understood the English sentences well.

Many thanks.

Kind regards,
Hela

PS: Can somebody tell me where, on the net, I can find plenty of :
- sentences with "so that" + indicative or subjunctive;
- exercises of "grammar in context" (on tenses and may other things) ?

Mister Micawber · Answer

Hi Hela,

A/ a) "It was high time we went" -- 'high' time is the last available time, the critical time, the last time before it will be too late. This sentence means that it is getting very late and the hosts would probably like them to leave; or, the train departs in 10 minutes and it takes 9 minutes to drive to the station from here; or, they have been meaning to see The Last Samurai Part II for two weeks now, and it will be leaving the theatre soon; etc.

b) is wrong; I cannot make sense of it.

B/ All are correct, as annotated by you. (I speak for the English, not for the translation.)

There are all kinds of uses of the infinitive, Hela; I could hardly supply examples of all of them, but googling turns up lots of pages; similarly, you will have about as much luck as I in finding 'so that' and other grammar exercises on the internet. I don't know any specific sites; I would just start googling. Maybe some other mods have bookmarked some.

Wish

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