Después de aprender Present Perfect vs Past Perfect, en está lección aprenderás Would For Past Actions.
Would se usa a menudo donde el pretérito imperfecto estaría en español. A diferencia de used to, would debería usarse con action verbs en lugar de state verbs.
Context or an adverb are helpful so as not to confuse it with the conditional.
Context o un adverb son útiles para no confundirlo con el condicional.
Examples:
My grandfather would often read to me when I was younger — (Mi abuelo me leía a menudo cuando era pequeño)
I would say yes to everything (ambiguous!) — (Yo diría/decía?? que sí a todo)
When I was asked for help, I would say yes to everything — (Cuando me pedían ayuda yo decía que sí a todo.(diría no pega aquí)
I used to (would) live in the UK — (Vivía en el Reino Unido)
Would se puede utilizar para expresar voluntad y propensión a hacer algo. En el presente usamos will.
Examples:
He wouldn’t help me — Se negó a ayudarme / No quiso ayudarme
Grandpa complained again. – He would, wouldn’t he — El abuelo se quejó otra vez. -Claro. No podía ser de otra forma
- Would like/love (desire)
- I would love to go to the beach this summer.
- I wouldn’t like to break any bone.
- Second Conditional (If + situation + result)
- If I won the lottery, I would donate all the money to my favorite charity.
- If my car was stolen, I would call the police and they would do nothing.
Examples:
- I would dress my brother in women’s clothes when I was a child.
- After school, my sister and I would go to my grandparents’ house to do our homework.
- In the 80’s, students would take their “walkmans” to school.
- African Americans would sit in the back of the bus in the 50’s in the USA.
Questions:
- What would you do after school in Elementary School?
- Where would you go for Xmas?
- What would people do before cars existed?
- What would you play with your siblings?
En la próxima lección aprenderás Modals in the Past.
