This is a lesson about the various uses of the verb “wish”. This lesson is part of a complete and free upper-intermediate English course. There is a presentation version of this lesson in the “materials” tab above. The exercises for this topic are here.
We can use “wish” to talk about imaginary or hypothetical or impossible situations, states & events.
Because these situations are imaginary, hypothetical or impossible we use a subjunctive form.
The subjunctive in English is subtle and often appears to be familiar tenses like the past simple or past continuous.
A tip for using the subjunctive is to regress the verbal tenses back one conjugation. For example; If you are talking about the present (simple) in the subjunctive use the past simple. If you are talking about the past, use the past continuous.
We often use the subjunctive with;
There are lots of complicated descriptions of the subjunctive in grammar books with countless examples of subjunctives for all different tenses, but you can skip ALL of that with one simple trick!
When we are talking in the subjunctive just use the verbal tense one behind the one that you need.
If you’re talking about;
If we want to talk about something imaginary in progress right now or around this time we can use what looks like the past continuous (remember, the subjunctive always appears to be one conjugation behind the tense that we are actually speaking in).
If I want to express that I would like to be taller, in the present, I need to use the subjunctive because this is impossible. As mentioned before, when referring to the present, the subjunctive appears to be the past simple;
Notice that in the first example we use were instead of was, this is a peculiarity of the subjunctive in English, we can use were for all persons instead of was. If you want to you can use was, like in the second example, but “were” is more standard.
If we want to talk about the past in the subjunctive we use what looks like the past perfect;
If something annoys you, you can use wish + would + infinitive (without “to”) to express this annoyance.
Imagine that I have a friend who talks incessantly, I could say;
It annoys me when people listen to music on the metro without headphones, so I could say;
If we are speaking in a formal sense, we can use wish as a synonym of want, it works the same in as much as we follow it with in infinitive;
We can also use it with “for” to talk about things that we want;
There are lots of common expressions that use “wish” to express “good feelings” or good fortune. For example;
Wish and Hope are similar but different!
We use wish for;
We use hope for our preferred (usually realistic) outcome or results;
Check your comprehension with the following interactive tests.