Grammar — Uses of will and would: Uses of will
- We use will to talk about:
- certainty:
- We know Eric will be cooking when we arrive.
- deductions:
- A: Why aren’t they here yet?
- B: Don’t worry. They’ll have been working late.
- They’ll have got stuck in traffic.
- They will be sitting in a traffic jam.
- typical behaviour:
- Every afternoon my parents will spend at least 20 minutes discussing the current political situation.
- It’s five o’clock. Eliza and Brandon will be having their afternoon tea.
- typical behaviour that is irritating:
- He will leave his schoolbag on the floor after he’s come back from school.
- insistence:
- She will scroll through photos when we’re together.
- If he will come home late, what can he expect?
- spontaneous decisions made at the moment of speaking:
- Don’t worry, I’ll help you do this assignment.
- predictions or promises in the future:
- It will be a fantastic opportunity to finally meet the writer.
- My dad will probably be fixing his bike.
- By next month, my grandparents will have finished renovating their house.
- Will not (won’t) replaces refuse in the present tense: He won’t help his sister do her homework.
- We use will + have + Past Participle to express presumptions about the past.
- As you will have noticed, the report contains some factual mistakes. (You have probably noticed./I’m sure you have noticed.)
Grammar — Uses of will and would: Uses of would
- Would is used:
- in conditional sentences, to talk about hypothetical situations in the present or in the past:
- If I were you, I would join the choir.
- If we had known about the weather, we would have brought coats.
- in reported speech when the reporting verb is in the past form to report will:
- He promised he would come to see us.
- to talk about predictions or promises made in the past for what was then the future:
- It would be a fantastic opportunity to finally meet the writer.
- We knew Oliver would be cooking when we arrived.
- By the following month, my grandparents would have finished renovating their house.
- in certain expressions: would like, would prefer, would rather
- We’d like to order two pizzas.
- I would prefer to stay at home this evening.
- I would prefer it if you didn’t work so much.
- She’d rather stay at home this evening.
- They’d rather you didn’t work so much.
- We use would + have + Past Participle when we are making an assumption about what happened in the past or drawing a logical conclusion:
- They would have been quite happy to see us. (assumption)
- Stan would have left his family home in the country so he was able to start working in the capital city. (logical conclusion)
- To express our willingness to do something, we use will and would. The meaning is similar to (don’t) want to.
- We use won’t/wouldn’t to express unwillingness.
- I will call you as soon as I have more news.
- Would you lend me your car, please?
- She won’t listen to me anymore.
- He wouldn’t even eat dinner with us.
- Would is also used to soften or distance a statement, opinion or hope:
- That would be your duty ... (That is your duty …)
- I would suppose that they’ll get married. (I suppose that they’ll …)
- I would think that my mum is pretty tired right now. (I think …)