Unreal Past & A Film

Wednesday 11^th March, 2015

Hi, Isabel!

Winter came back and this weekend wasn’t as good as the previous one!

Anyway, let’s be optimistic because this week is shorter.

What did we do last Wednesday?

We continued talking about regrets, and hypothesizing about the present and the past.

We revised the uses of the unreal past.

Sometimes the verb tense we use does not coincide with the time. Bear in mind that “tense” isn’t the same as “time”.

Time: present, past or future.

I wish I had Sue’s telephone number. So, I could tell her about the lecture.

“Had” is past simple tense but the time it refers to is present. It refers to a present situation.

·         When Bill and I got married, his attitude to money amused me.

·         If Bill got promoted, our standard of living would go up.

·         I wish we were better off.

·         I was so jealous when I heard about Carol’s weekend in New York.

·         I think it’s time we moved to a bigger house.

·         I’d rather my daughters married a man with money.

·         I wish I’d married my first boyfriend!

·         If I’d married Sean, I would have a better standard of living.

Tenses In bold red really correspond to past time.

Tenses in bold green, use the past but refer to present or future situations.

 Summing up

·     Use wish + past simple to refer to things we would like to be different in the present or the future (but which are impossible or unlikely)

If only I knew the answer!

I wish I knew the answer.

Wish + past perfect, to talk about things which happened and we now regret.

 (Instead of ‘wish’ you can use ‘if only’ in exactly the same way. Nevertheless, ‘if only’ is more emphatic).

 If only you hadn’t forgotten the map, we’d be there by now!

I wish you hadn’t forgotten the map.

·         We use would rather + subject + past tense to express preference.

I’d rather you left your dog outside. I’m allergic.

We can use would rather+ infinitive without ‘to’ when there is no change of subject.

I’d rather not talk about it.

·         We use the past simple after it’s time + subject to say that something has to be done now or in the near future.

It’s time (high time) the government did something about unemployment.

We can use it’s time +to+infinitive when we don’t want to specify the subject.

It’s time to finish this.

And we continued watching the film.

Carter has been promoted and starts his new adventure in business. He’s now the head of sales at the advertisement department of the magazine ‘Sports America’. Dan, the former manager finds out that he has been demoted when he comes back from playing tennis with her eldest daughter. It’s when he enters his office that he finds out that the ‘kid’ he bumped into in the corridor is going to be his new boss. Previously, Carter had met Dan’s daughter in the elevator, although he didn’t know that she was Dan’s daughter.

Carter feels exhilarated (really excited) about his new status and decides to buy a luxury sports car but he crashes it as soon as he drives off the car dealer’s. As a result, his arm ends up in a sling. He gets home to find that his wife is leaving him and …

TO BE CONTINUED!

See you on Wednesday!