(B) if the intended meaning is that he made a suggestion (directive) like, "You should buy a car." (A) can be correct when "I bought a car" is a past tense statement, not a directive; i.e., when he said, "You bought a

Why should we use 'would' ,'could' in the subjunctive mood and in the future tense? It's very confusing. Please make it simple and help me understand. for example, - I'd love to do it. - We could, we

From the book, I learned that there are 5 If ... Then patterns. 1. If present, then present 2. If present, then can/may 3. If present, then future 4. If hypothetical subjunctive, then conditional If pete ATE pizza tomorrow, THEN he WOULD

Hi, Could you try to convince me why the abrupt change of tense makes sense? Why should it make sense? After all, we're talking about English grammar! Anyway, somebody says it's an instance of unreal past ... We sometimes use past tenses

I was concentrating on the choice between were and was (subjunctive vs. indicative), and I neglected to address the choice between was/were and is (past vs. present). Could you please 'defend' native speakers' tendency? You're

Were it not for the demise of grammar!  "I were" is PAST tense SUBJUNCTIVE mood.   "I was" is PAST tense INDICATIVE mood.  T he s ubjunctive is used to express a counterfactual statement, a possibility, or express a wish .

Goodman wrote: Yoong Liat wrote: Goodman wrote: Hi Guys, It’s raining buckets and you have a BBQ planned in your back yard. You’d say “I wish It weren’t raining…” This is subjunctive, not indicative; so “was” is incorrect although

Yoong Liat wrote: Goodman wrote: Hi Guys, It’s raining buckets and you have a BBQ planned in your back yard. You’d say “I wish It weren’t raining…” This is subjunctive, not indicative; so “was” is incorrect although it’s frequently

Hi, it's commonly used that way. In Italian it would be translated into a subjunctive, so it makes sense to me to use a past tense there. It's just that this doesn't happen very often in English. I think the structure follows the same pattern as

---------- After a past indicative tense form the distinction of meaning between present and past tense forms usually disappears entirely: She desired that he might come at once. We demanded that the burden should be removed.