Post #485

🔰Wish 🔻Let’s start off with the easy part. ‘ I wish to’ can mean the same as ‘I want to’ but it is much, much more formal and much, much less common. 🔹I wish to make a complaint. 🔹I wish to see the manager. 🔻You can also use ‘wish’ with a noun to ‘offer good wishes’. 🔹I wish you all the best in your new job. 🔹We wish you a merry Christmas. 🔻Notice that when you want to offer good wishes using a verb, you must use ‘hope‘ and not ‘wish’. 🔹We wish you the best of luck. 🔸We hope you have the best of luck. 🔹I wish you a safe and pleasant journey. 🔸I hope you have a safe and pleasant journey. 🔻However, the main use of ‘wish’ is to say that we would like things to be different from what they are, that we have regrets about the present situation. 🔹I wish I was rich. 🔹He wishes he lived in Paris. 🔹They wish they’d chosen a different leader. 🔻Notice that the verb tense which follows ‘I wish’ is ‘more in the past’ than the tense corresponding to its meaning. 🔹I’m too fat. I wish I was thin. 🔹I never get invited to parties. I wish I got invited to parties. 🔹It’s raining. I wish it wasn’t raining. 🔹I went to see the latest Star Wars film. I wish I hadn’t gone. 🔹I’ve eaten too much. I wish I hadn’t eaten so much. 🔹I’m going to visit her later. I wish I wasn’t going to visit her later. 🔻In the case of ‘will’ , where ‘will’ means ‘show willingness’ we use ‘would’. 🔹He won’t help me. I wish he would help me. 🔹You’re making too much noise. I wish you would be quiet. 🔹You keep interrupting me. I wish you wouldn’t do that. 🔻Where ‘will’ means a future event, we cannot use ‘wish’ and must use ‘hope’. 🔹There’s a strike tomorrow. I hope some buses will still be running. 🔹I hope everything will be fine in your new job. 🔻In more formal English, we use the subjunctive form ‘were’ and not ‘was’ after ‘wish’. 🔹I wish I were taller. 🔹I wish it were Saturday today. 🔹I wish he were here. @EnglishGrammarSecrets