The Grammaring Guide to English Grammar with Exercises

The modal WOULD to express unreal situations

Present and future

Would + infinitive can refer to unreal situations in the present or future. An unreal situation is one which is not true in the present or one which may or may not happen in the future:

It

would be

nice to live by the sea.

(I don't live by the sea)

It

would be

great to go hiking in the Appalachians again.

(I may or may not go)

Would is often used in the main clause of a sentence in the second conditional:

I

wouldn't do

that if I were you.

(I am not you)

I

would help

you if you asked me to.

(you may or may not ask me)

Past

Would + perfect infinitive refers to unreal situations in the past. We imagine a hypothetical past situation which did not happen. We often use an if-clause to describe the situation:

It

would have been

wonderful to meet you in person.

I

would have helped

you if you had asked me to.

(you didn't ask me)

Quotes:

What would I do if I had only six months left to live? I'd type faster. - Isaac Asimov

If it weren't for the fact that the TV set and the refrigerator are so far apart, some of us wouldn't get any exercise at all. - Joey Adams

If people behaved like governments, you'd call the cops. - Kelvin Throop

The soul would have no rainbow if the eyes had no tears. - Native American proverb

How old would you be if you didn't know how old you were? - Satchel Paige

We would accomplish many more things if we did not think of them as impossible. - Vince Lombardi

Related topics:

Second conditional

Third conditional