{"id":74133,"date":"2020-04-19T11:22:44","date_gmt":"2020-04-19T11:22:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/perfectyourenglish.com\/blog\/?p=74133"},"modified":"2020-04-19T11:22:44","modified_gmt":"2020-04-19T11:22:44","slug":"past-verb-forms-with-present-or-future-meaning","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/perfectyourenglish.com\/blog\/past-verb-forms-with-present-or-future-meaning\/","title":{"rendered":"Past Verb Forms With Present Or Future Meaning"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><b>A past tense\u00a0<\/b>does not always have a past meaning. After words like <a href=\"http:\/\/perfectyourenglish.com\/blog\/if-vs-unless\/\">if, unless<\/a> and supposing, we often use past verb forms with present or future meaning.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><b>If<\/b>\u00a0I had the money now I<b>\u00a0would\u00a0<\/b>buy a car.<\/li>\n<li>You look\u00a0<b>as if\u00a0<\/b>you\u00a0<b>were\u00a0<\/b>about to scream.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h3>It\u2019s time<\/h3>\n<p>After expressions like\u00a0<b>it\u2019s time, <a href=\"http:\/\/perfectyourenglish.com\/blog\/would-rather\/\">would rather<\/a>\u00a0<\/b>and\u00a0<b>wish<\/b>, past forms can have present or future meaning.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Ten o\u2019clock \u2013\u00a0<b>it is time<\/b>\u00a0you\u00a0<b>went<\/b>\u00a0home.<\/li>\n<li><b>I wish<\/b>\u00a0I\u00a0<b>was\u00a0<\/b>better-looking.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h3>Distancing<\/h3>\n<p>Past verb forms are often used to make questions, requests and offers sound less direct and more polite. Common expressions are\u00a0<i>I wondered, I thought, I hoped, did you want.<\/i><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><b>I wondered<\/b>\u00a0if you were free this evening.<\/li>\n<li><b>I was hoping\u00a0<\/b>you could lend me some money.<\/li>\n<li><b>I thought\u00a0<\/b>you might like some coffee.<\/li>\n<li><b>Did you want<\/b>\u00a0to go now?<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h3>Modals<\/h3>\n<p>The modal verbs\u00a0<b><a href=\"http:\/\/perfectyourenglish.com\/blog\/could-modal-auxiliary-verbs\/\">could<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/perfectyourenglish.com\/blog\/might-modal-auxiliary-verb\/\">might<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/perfectyourenglish.com\/blog\/modal-auxiliary-would\/\">would<\/a>\u00a0<\/b>and<b>\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/perfectyourenglish.com\/blog\/using-ought-to-and-should\/\">should<\/a><\/b>\u00a0usually have present or future reference.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><b>Could\u00a0<\/b>you help me?<\/li>\n<li>I think it<b>\u00a0might\u00a0<\/b>rain soon.<\/li>\n<li>She\u00a0<b>should\u00a0<\/b>be here soon.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A past tense\u00a0does not always have a past meaning. After words like if, unless and supposing, we often use past verb forms with present or future meaning. If\u00a0I had the money now I\u00a0would\u00a0buy a&#46;&#46;&#46;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[251],"tags":[2713,344,2714],"class_list":["post-74133","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-grammar","tag-past-tense","tag-tenses","tag-using-past-tenses"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/perfectyourenglish.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74133","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/perfectyourenglish.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/perfectyourenglish.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/perfectyourenglish.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/perfectyourenglish.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=74133"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/perfectyourenglish.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74133\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":74134,"href":"https:\/\/perfectyourenglish.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74133\/revisions\/74134"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/perfectyourenglish.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=74133"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/perfectyourenglish.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=74133"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/perfectyourenglish.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=74133"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}