When do you use “will” and when do you use “would” in English?

Some of my ESL students often ask me when they should “will” and when they should “would”.  This is a common problem for many learners of English.  Both “will” and “would” can be used for future time but there is a difference in meaning.  “Will” is used when it appears likely that something will happen in the future.

 

e.g.1 – “We will have a high tomorrow of + 11 degrees Celsius.”

 

In this sentence, the speaker believes (maybe he/she is a meteorologist) that the high (i.e. – the maximum temperature) will reach + 11 degrees.

 

In contrast, English speakers use “would” if a future event is highly unlikely or contrary to fact.  It is usually used in a conditional sentence with “if”.

 

e.g.2 – “If I was prime minister, I would lower taxes.”

 

Note that in the above example, there is a conditional clause (“if I was prime minister”) before the clause with “would”.  I’m not the prime minister.  This is contrary to fact.  Therefore, I can’t lower taxes.  By the way, you may also have noticed that sentence starts with “If I was …” not “If I were …”  Both “was” and “were” are OK here.  They both mean that I’m actually not prime minister.  “Were” is just more formal than “was”.

 

In speaking, however, people don’t normally pronounce “will” and “would”.  For ‘will’ people normally just say ‘ll.  For example, people normally say e.g. 1 like this: “We’ll have a high tomorrow of + 11 degrees Celsius”.   Some of my students have problems with the /l/ at the end of a word.  They often mispronounce /l/ as /w/, so they say “we’w” not “we’ll”.  To say it correctly, you need to put your tongue in the same position as the /l/ in the  word “light”.

 

With regards to “would”, English speakers usually pronounce it as ‘d.  So, they would normally pronounce “I would lower taxes” as “I’d lower taxes”.

 

There’s also another difference in meaning between “will” and “would”, but I can tell you about that next time.

How to pronounce ‘t’ between two vowels in North America English

Is it correct to say “the airplane’s wings” in English?

Many of my ESL students have been confused by whether it’s correct to say something like “the airplane’s wings”.  I tell them them “No, it’s not correct.”  “Why?!” they ask since this is the typical possessive grammatical pattern in English.  The reason that it’s not correct to say “the airplane’s wings” is that in English the meaning of a word is sometimes related to grammatical correctness.   In English, one cannot use the above possessive grammatical construction with nouns that are not alive.  An airplane is not alive.  Therefore, it is not possible to say this.  Only living things, particularly those living things which have a high level of consciousness (such as human beings) may take the <s> possessive in English.

For example, one could perfectly well say something like in example 1:

 

Example 1 – the man’s car (grammatically correct)

 

This is perfectly grammatically correct since a man is an example of a human being, which is a living thing with a high level of consciousness.  However, it would not be possible to use the <s> possessive with a car since a car is not a living thing (see example 2 below).

 

Example 2 – the car’s interior (grammatically incorrect)

 

Actually, this kind of makes sense if you think about it.  A human can have a notion of possession but a non-living thing cannot have such a notion.  A man can think to himself “this is my car”, but a car would not be able to think “this is my interior”.

For non-living things, one does not use a possessive construction but one sometimes uses a part-whole grammatical construction (see example 3).

 

Example 3 – the interior of the car (grammatically correct)

 

In example 3, one expresses the fact that the interior is only part of the car with the above construction.  However, for human beings even there is a part-whole relationship, one would still use the <s> possessive as in example 4 below.

 

Example 4 – the man’s heart (grammatically correct)

 

Nevertheless, things are not always so clearcut.  There are nouns which refer to living things which have consciousness, but don’t have fully human consciousness.  A dog is a good example of this.  For such living things, they would normally be treated grammatically like people with respect to the above constructions (see examples 5 and 6).

 

Example 5 – the dog’s tail (grammatically correct)

 

Example 6 – the tail of the dog (grammatically strange)

 

I wouldn’t say that example number 6 is totally wrong, but it’s definitely strange.  Example number 5 sounds much more grammatically acceptable to me as a native speaker of English.

Now, let’s take a living thing which is less human-like than a dog and, as far as I know, has a lower level of consciousness such a fly (see examples 7 and 8).

 

Example 7 – a fly’s wings (grammatically very strange)

 

Example 8 – the wings of a fly (grammatically correct)

 

You can see that a fly is treated grammatically more like a non-living thing such as a car than a human being.

Things are a bit more complicated than this, but I think these are the basic principles underlying these two grammatical constructions.  Now, let’s see if you can apply these principles.  Look at the following phrases.  Only one of them will be definitely correct while the other one will be incorrect or sound strange in English.  Choose the correct example.  The answers are written below.

 

1. the man’s arm / the arm of the man

 

2. the dog’s ears /  the ears of the dog

 

3. gas’s price / the price of gas

 

4. milk’s cost / the cost of milk

 

 

Answers:

1. the man’s arm
2. the dog’s ears
3. the price of gas
4. the cost of milk

Paralanguage

When should you say “boring” and when should say “bored”?

“I don’t want to watch that movie.  It’s bored.” Is “bored” used correctly or incorrectly in this context?  How about in the following context:  “I didn’t like the movie.  I felt boring.”  Is “boring” used correctly or incorrectly?  The answer is that both “boring” and “bored” were used incorrectly in the above sentences.  The incorrect use of words such as “boring” and “bored” is a common problem for learners of English.  Words such as “boring” are called present participles while words such as “bored” are called past participles.  In the above examples, they were used as adjectives because they were used to describe a person and a movie.  A common problem that many learners of English have is when to use the adjectival past participle form (verb-ing) and when to use the adjectival present participle form (verb-ed).

The adjectival present participle form (verb-ing) should actually have been used in the above example to form a correct utterance as in example 1:

 

example 1:   “I don’t want to watch that movie.  It’s boring.”

 

Why?  Verb-ing forms are used when something or someone has an effect on somebody.  A movie which is boring induces a feeling of boredom on people.  One typically uses the verb-ing adjective in two syntactic environments:

 

Environment A: The movie      is   boring.

Noun phrase   be  verb-ing

                           (or pronoun) 

 

Environment B: a boring      movie

verb-ing  noun

 

In other words, the verb-ing is used exactly like an adjective – either after a linking verb such as “be” or before a noun because it functions like an adjective.  In addition, the verb-ed form can be used in environment A as well since it is used in such cases as an adjective as well.

 

Environment A: The man         is    bored.

Noun phrase   be   verb-ed

(or pronoun) 

 

In addition, environment B can be used for the verb-ed form as well but this is less common.

 

Environment B: a bored       man

verb-ed    noun

 

One should say that “The man is bored” because his boredom is caused by something else.  To repeat, a “boring movie” causes boredom in people.  On the other hand, a “bored man” has a feeling of boredom which is caused by something else such as his social environment, what he is doing etc.

There is another difference in meaning between these adjective forms.  Only a living thing with consciousness such as a human being can take a verb-ed form since it implies a feeling or an attitude.  A man can be bored.  He can be excited.  He can feel disappointed etc.  However, a non-living thing without consciousness cannot take a verb-ed form.  For example, a movie cannot be bored.  However, it can be boring because of the effect it has on its audience.  A movie cannot be excited.  However, it can be exciting because of the effect it has on its audience.  In addition, news cannot be disappointed.  However, news can be disappointing because of the effect that it has on a person.

Nevertheless, living things with consciousness can also take verb-ing adjective forms.  When, for example, verb-ing adjective forms are used for people (as in example 2 below), it means that the people have this effect on others.

 

example 2 – That man is so boring.

 

In example 2, the meaning is that that man causes a feeling of boredom in other people.  On the other hand, example 3 has a very different meaning.

 

example 3 – That man is so bored.

 

In example 3, the meaning is that that man has a feeling of intense boredom.

 

Let’s see if you understand.  Look at the sentences below and choose the correct answer.  After you have finished, check the answers which are at the bottom of the article.

 

1. I feel so bored / boring.  Let’s go to a movie.

 

2. The movie was so bored / boring that many people left the movie theatre before the movie was over.

 

3. The children are excited / exciting because tomorrow is Christmas Day and they’ll get lots of toys.

 

4. The air flight to India was really tired / tiring.  I fell asleep as soon as I got to the hotel.

 

Answers:

1. bored
2. boring
3. excited
4. tiring