[BEST LESSONS] - Should Have, Could Have, or Would Have?

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Now sit back, relax, and enjoy listening to one of our best lessons! In the last episode, I talked about the differences between should, could, and would. And today I'm going to teach you about should have, could have, and would have. These are sometimes called modals of lost opportunity, because they describe situations

when we are imagining that the past was different. First, let's review the general rules for should, could and would. Remember we use should for suggestions or advice. For example, if you want to lose weight you should eat healthy food. We use could for possibilities. For example, I have the day off tomorrow. Great! We could spend the

day at the beach or we could go shopping. And we use would for imagining the results of an imaginary situation, an unreal situation. For example, if I were rich, I would buy a boat. So the same general rule applies when using SHOULD HAVE, COULD HAVE, and WOULD HAVE for imaginary past situations. Use SHOULD HAVE to say that a different action was recommended in the past.

For example, if you arrive late to English class, you can say, I should have left my house earlier. If you regret an argument that you had yesterday, you can say, I shouldn't have yelled at you yesterday. I'm sorry.

Again, this is imagining that a past situation was different. You can also use SHOULD HAVE or SHOULDN'T HAVE to tell other people that a different action in the past would have been better. For example, if your son fails a test, you can say, You should have studied. You shouldn't have played video games all weekend.

Again, these actions are in the past and there's no way to change them now, but we use SHOULD HAVE and SHOULDN'T HAVE for talking about the actions we recommended in the past. Now let's look at COULD HAVE. Remember that COULD is used for possibilities, so we use COULD HAVE to talk about possibilities if something had been different in the past.

For example, someone who didn't go to college can say, If I had gone to college, I could have gotten a better job. The person is imagining that something was different in the past, going to college instead of not going to college, and the resulting possibility, I could have gotten a better

job. Now let's imagine you're talking about a gymnast who didn't win a competition because she fell three times during her performance. So you can say, she could have won the gold medal if she hadn't fallen three times.

Again it expresses a possibility if something had been different in the past. Could have is often used with if plus had plus the past participle, for example, if I had gone to college or if she hadn't fallen. These IF phrases express the imaginary past situation.

However, in some cases you can use COULD have without the IF phrase, when it's obvious from the context. For example, imagine you're driving with the person who makes a dangerous maneuver on the road.

You can say, are you crazy? We could have gotten into an accident. Finally, let's look at WOULD have. would have to imagine a result if something had been different in the past. For example,

if you arrive late at the airport and you miss your flight, you can say, if we had arrived earlier, we would have caught our flight. If you forgot your umbrella and it starts to rain and you get wet, you can say, if I had brought my umbrella, I wouldn't have gotten wet in the rain. Would have expresses more certainty about the result than could

have. For example, if I had worked harder, I could have gotten a promotion. Could have expresses only the possibility, not the certainty, so I could have gotten a promotion means maybe I'd get a promotion, but maybe not. Now let's say you took a test where you need 70% to pass. I got a 68 on the test. If I had gotten two more points, I would

have passed. Would have expresses more certainty. With the two points, passing the test was certain. I would have passed. So let's review. Use should have for talking about recommendations for things that would have been better if done differently in the past. Use COULD have to talk about possibilities if things had been

different in the past, and use WOULD have to express more certain results again if something had been different in the past. Now, in spoken English, many people pronounce these two words as if they were one word, so instead of SHOULD have, we say SHOULD have. Instead of COULD HAVE, we say COULD HAVE. And instead of WOULD HAVE, we say WOULD HAVE. Remember

that in spoken English, these small words, especially auxiliary verbs like the word HAVE, often get reduced. So we say SHOULD HAVE, COULD HAVE, and WOULD HAVE. This will help you recognize these expressions when you hear them in fast spoken English. Now, if you want to learn more about advanced grammatical structures in English, go to espressoenglish.net

and check out the Advanced English Grammar Course. This is a course that goes very in-depth into the advanced details of the English language, and it covers all of the verb tenses, including modal verbs like should, could, and would, prepositions, adverbs, adjectives, nouns, sentence structure, and almost every topic that has to do with English grammar.

So if you really want to learn all the details, you will love this course. It's the Advanced English Grammar Course. Check it out at espressoenglish.net. Thanks for listening, and I'll see you next time.

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