Day 13: wish away

Hi everyone!

These are days of wishing and hoping. Hoping that everyone around us keeps well, hoping that we will come out stronger, wishing we could do more. We hope that what we're doing is useful, in our own little way.

But can we use wish and hope correctly? There are some small intricacies to the use of these two verbs, which may cause a bit of trouble even at higher levels.

All of these sentences contain errors made by students at Proficiency level. Can you find them? For today's challenge: 

- Spot the error in each sentence and correct it. 

- Tell us in the comments what you found, and what you think are the main rules of use of hope and wish that the errors illustrate.


Hope and wish to your heart's content today!


1. I do wish I will turn out to be a good doctor.
2. She wishes she would be more positive about the future.
3. I hope you to have a pleasant stay.
4. I wish I will be able to suppress my laughter when he speaks, but I can't.
5. I wish you like the present I've got you for your birthday.
6. He hopes he would remember things more easily.
7. I wish they allowed us to enter the club last night.
8. I really wish to hear from you soon.
9. I wish they stopped smoking; it's making me cough.
10. I wish her children can be as well-behaved as yours.
11. We spent hours in the forest wishing to see an elk.
12. I wish there'll always be green hilss and rivers.








Comments

  1. Carlos Roldán GalánMarch 27, 2020 at 12:34 PM

    1. I HOPE I will turn out to be a good doctor.

    2. She wishes she COULD be more positive about the future.

    3. I WISH you a pleasant stay. ha ha ha (too many changes?)

    4. I HOPE I will be able to suppress my laughter when he speaks, but I can't.

    5. I wish you like the present I HAD got you for your birthday.

    6. He WISHES he would remember things more easily.

    7. I wish they HAD allowed us to enter the club last night.

    8. I really HOPE to hear from you soon.

    9. I wish they HAD stopped smoking; it's making me cough.

    10. I wish her children COULD be as well-behaved as yours.

    11. We spent hours in the forest HOPING to see an elk.

    12. I wish there WOULD always be green hilss and rivers.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Carlos Roldán GalánMarch 27, 2020 at 12:45 PM

    Wish: in the past is used wtih Past Parcticiple, desires difficult or almost impossible to come true. conditionals.

    Hope: expectations that are probably to be done, it used with will, in the past it is used with simple past.

    The explanation is not good at all, I hope that it will be corrrect.

    ReplyDelete
  3. fdgcMarch 28, 2020 at 1:11 PM

    Hi, all,

    These are my answers:

    1. I do wish I will turn out to be a good doctor.
    I do hope I will turn out to be a good doctor.

    2. She wishes she would be more positive about the future.
    She wishes she were more positive about the future.

    3. I hope you to have a pleasant stay.
    I hope you have a pleasant stay.

    4. I wish I will be able to suppress my laughter when he speaks, but I can't.
    I wish I could / were able to suppress my laughter when he speaks, but I can´t.

    5. I wish you like the present I've got you for your birthday.
    I hope you like the present I´ve got you for your birthday.

    6. He hopes he would remember things more easily.
    He wishes he remembered things more easily.

    7. I wish they allowed us to enter the club last night.
    I wish they had allowed us to enter the club last night.

    8. I really wish to hear from you soon.
    I really wish for hearing from you soon.

    9. I wish they stopped smoking; it's making me cough.
    I wish they would stop smoking; it´s making me cough.

    10. I wish her children can be as well-behaved as yours.
    I wish her children could be as well-behaved as yours.

    11. We spent hours in the forest wishing to see an elk.
    We spent hours in the forest wishing for seeing an elk.

    12. I wish there'll always be green hilss and rivers.
    I hope there'll always be green hills and rivers.


    Main rules of use:
    - hope: to desire or expect something positive to happen
    - wish + past simple: to express that you feel sorry or sad about something
    - wish + past perfect: to express regret or that you feel sorry or sad about an action in the past
    - wish + would: to express annoyance about something
    - wish for: to desire something

    By the way, similarly to this, I would also say that there are some small intricacies to the use of hope, expect and wait

    Thank you Bea!

    ReplyDelete
  4. EvelitaMarch 28, 2020 at 1:57 PM


    1. I do wish I will turn out to be a good doctor.
    I hope I will turn out to be a good doctor.

    2. She wishes she would be more positive about the future.
    She wishes to be more positive about the future.

    3. I hope you to have a pleasant stay.
    I hope you have a pleasant stay.

    4. I wish I will be able to suppress my laughter when he speaks, but I can't.
    I wish I could suppress my laughter when he speaks, but I can't.

    5. I wish you like the present I've got you for your birthday.
    I hope you like the present I've got you for your birthday.

    6. He hopes he would remember things more easily.
    He wishes he could remember things more easily.

    7. I wish they allowed us to enter the club last night.
    I wish they would’ve allowed us to enter the club last night.

    8. I really wish to hear from you soon.
    I really hope to hear from you soon.

    9. I wish they stopped smoking; it's making me cough.
    I wish them to stop smoking; it's making me cough.

    10. I wish her children can be as well-behaved as yours.
    I wish her children were as well-behaved as yours.

    11. We spent hours in the forest wishing to see an elk.
    We spent hours in the forest hoping to see an elk.

    12. I wish there'll always be green hilss and rivers.
    I wish there were always green hills and rivers

    I found that some of the mistakes were related to the wrong use of wish and hope. As a general rule, I'd say to hope is used when referring to situations which are more likely to happen than the situations we talk about when using to wish. Other mistakes have to do with the use of grammar. From a grammatical perspective, both hope and wish can be use to talk about past, present or future, but the structures are different for each of them.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Day 3: A crossword

Image
A classic challenge for any language lover! Full of synonyms, abbreviations, cultural references. Who's up for a crossword in English today? Instructions for Day 3: - Find the crossword I have more or less randomly selected for you here in this link . - Start as soon as you can! This crossword tells you the time it takes you to complete it, and the timer will start running as soon as you open the tab. A little convention on this page is that correct letters will appear in black and wrong letters in red. Every wrong letter will give you a 10-second penalty. - Complete the crossword to the best of your ability for 15 minutes ("I just feel like a mild challenge" mode) or 20 minutes ("I got hooked" mode).  - Take a screenshot after that time and show us your result.  Let's see who we consider to be the winner! You can see here my result for a different crossword. It took me a little while until I realised there were penalties, so my...
Read more

Day 10: catchy titles

Well hello! I found this little clip and the contrast between the title and the subject matter actually surprised me. Whoever wrote the title had a sense of humour. It's called "Alaskan money laundering". The video gives a new meaning to "money laundering" all right! What is the contrast between metaphorical and literal use of "laundering" that makes this title funny? Understanding this kind of humour, based on metaphor, is to me one of the signs of reaching a C2 level. So, for today's challenge: - Answer my question about the title: What is the contrast between metaphorical and literal use of "laundering" that makes this title funny? - Write a short summary of the video using these words: charred, denominations, distinguishable, rinse off, intact, stack, going the extra mile, salvage, tragic. See you in the comments!
Read more

Day 8: the pronunciation poem

Hi everyone! How do you feel after passing the one-week mark? Are you settling into a routine? Tell us in the comments about how you have incorporated this challenge into your daily life. Today's the day that the mystery of the pronunciation lists is revealed. There is this fiendish pronunciation poem that highlights the worst part of English pronunciation: the exceptions to the most useful of all findings for a learner of English--patterns. What happens when we have internalised a pattern of spelling-pronunciation and then--oh no--we find a word that doesn't follow it? "It's just a pattern", we tell ourselves, "it's not a rule". Oh well, we'll get over it. We write it down and try to learn it, cursing the English language mildly. We try to brush it off, but the truth is that it's frustrating. And the only antidote against that frustration is humour, and a sense of community that comes from acknowledging that even native speakers strug...
Read more