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8 February 2008: Wishes & Regrets
Happy New Year Everyone! I hope 2008 will bring you all health, happiness and lots of opportunities to practise your English.
I am really sorry that you have had to wait so long for your lesson but last week was the first week back at school and was very busy, and we have also a technical hitch with the website! However, things are getting back to normal now. Everyone had a good holiday, and did a lot of eating and drinking and some of you saw John and Mat in Tokyo, which was nice. They both came back with terrible colds and flu and John was off for three days but he says it was worth it! It must have been good!
January is always a nice month as it is the start of a new year and you can decide to turn over a new leaf. This means that you decide to be a better person and no longer do bad things like eat too much chocolate, not do your homework etc. So I thought it would be a good thing to look at wishes and regrets today. We wish things were different and we regret things we did in the past. So I can say "I wish I had written a letter to you last week". What sort of things do you wish and what do you regret?
Look at this table. It will help to explain the tenses we use in this week's exercise.
| Sentence | Time | Tense |
| I wish I spoke Arabic (I am sorry that I don't speak Arabic) | Now | I wish (present) I spoke (past) |
| I wish I were/was somewhere warm and sunny (I am sorry that I am not somewhere warm and sunny) | Now | I wish (present) I was/were (past) |
| I wish/If only he didn't smoke (I am sorry that he smokes) | Now | I wish (present) he didn't smoke (past) |
| I wish he had a car (I am sorry he hasn't got a car) | Now | I wish (present) he had (past) |
| I wish/If only he would stop chewing gum (we use would to talk about things we would like people to (not)do) (I want him to stop chewing gum) | Now | I wish (present) he would (past) |
| I wish this car would start (I want this car to start) | Now | I wish (present) would start (past) |
| I wish I hadn't said that (I am sorry that I said that) | Past | I wish (present) I hadn't said (past perfect) |
| I wish I had gone to bed earlier last night (I am sorry I went to bed late last night) | Past | I wish (present) I hadn't gone (past perfect) |
Have a good week and don't forget that now is the time to turn over a new leaf! That means that you should stop all your bad habits and become a better person.
Best wishes from Harriet and everyone at EIC!
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