While they're clearly different, their usage in a sentence isn't always as clear. Find out which word to choose and when. Follow these quick and easy guidelines to never get confused again. It just means that you had the ability to do it in 10 minutes. For example:. Not only did you have the ability to ride your bike home in 10 minutes, but you did do it in 10 minutes. In other words, "I will definitely go on vacation if it is possible to get the time off.
For example, you could say:. When you are making a suggestion, you are offering a possibility. It is in no way definite.
So, you will use "could" for suggestions. As you can see, you are offering a possibility. Invitations should be definite. For example, "I would love to go to Barbados. However, by knowing the rules, you can really clear things up. You have a bit of knowledge about verbs , so maybe think about giving action verbs a try. They might just have you screaming in joy! Leaving it out would feel like something is missing. To suggest that people use "would of" instead of "would have" is absolutely nothing to do with having a non-native English teacher: so far every time I have encountered this abomination it has been committed by a native speaker of English.
And it is not an equal "spelling mistake" to something like 'their' for 'they're' or suchlike: it simply shows an incredible degree of poor language command on the part of the writer for all of those cases. And confusing of with have is the most awful example of this lack of basic language command yet. I teach year-olds who learn English as a foreign language who understand the difference between a preposition and a verb.
As a teacher, it was common to see it in the work of children aged about ten, but a couple of minutes' explanation sorted it out. Now, how come it is encountered in adults' written work? If the adult in question was educated in the medium of English, did he or she have a teacher, and if so, how could this dreadful boob have been allowed to continue?
Was the teacher literate, at all? If English is a second language, then treating 'of' as a verb suggests a poor grasp of elementary grammar, but recognising that it is not correct is one thing, to say it is 'accepted' or 'it's okay, whatever, yah' would suggest the wrong attitude, really, now, would it not!?
Brus May Brus - for various reasons, it's possible that some native speakers don't get that much teaching in verb tenses and their construction - this comes so naturally in spoken language that it might have been thought unnecessary to concentrate on I'm only surmising, not defending.
Which has led some native speakers to write modal perfect constructions exactly as they hear them. But I have never seen a foreign learner make this mistake, because they have to learn the way these verb forms are constructed to be able to use them.
It's the same with the confusion in the spelling of 'your' and 'you're' and 'their', 'they're' and 'there' - these kinds of mistakes are almost exclusively made by native speakers. I'd suggest that most foreign learners who are following coursed of Upper-intermediate level and above, know rather more about the theory of English grammar than native speakers.
And for many native speakers of English, their own understanding of grammar structures comes when learning a foreign language. Warsaw Will May Yeah, saying would've sounds like "would of", but when people TYPE "would of", it drives me nuts.
Are our schools not teaching English basics anymore? Scott N Aug People use it a lot it hurts! Elie May I stumble over it more and more often, using tumblr.
As a non-native speaker it's really annoying. Because we wade into the deep waters of english internet communications to strengthen our language skills. But while I understand that nobody outside of English class speaks Oxford English, I noticed that nowadays it is pretty unlikely to keep your English on an acceptable level for job applications using the internet. Most English and American tumblr bloggers, Goodreads reviewers and Facebook users seem to be worse in writing English than I am.
And even though my college ranked me as 'native speaker level' I simply do not understand what they are trying to tell me. While I can communicate with French, Russian and Indian citizens and mostly Brits as well in English, especially writing with Americans becomes more and more difficult. Even though I read novels in English and watch most TV shows in original version as well. So while all those little quirks might seem like natural language evolution to those who use them, they are making it harder to communicate.
In a time when English is spoken or at least written by almost everyone on the planet and the internet brings us all together, those people segregate themselves again. Taaya Mar As someone who learnt english as a second language, I find it very ironic how I know it doesn't make any sense, but native speakers just don't.
I read it and was like "wait, that doesn't make any sense", and had to look it up to confirm it, because the person was a native speaker so no way that i immidiatelly notice it, but they type it like nothing's wrong. The difference is that native speakers learn the language from hearing it, while people like me learn it from books, designed for correct grammar. The word "would've" sounds like "would of", and native speakers confuse it at a young age, and probably grow up with it nobody telling them that they are wrong.
This is not the first case when ignorant people change the meaning of a word, and expect me to just change it in my head too, and I am the one who gets talked down for pointing it out. All it would take for them is to take one look and realise that that's not what "of" means, but some people are just too stubborn or lazy. Every time I read it i hear "Oh, you spent 10 years learning our language?
Well, too bad! See this word right here? You know what it means, don't you? You've studied it for 10 years after all! You see, we can just change the language and you can't do anything about it. We are the majority, and we are the native speakers. Grammar doesn't exist anymore. We are the grammar! All the effort I put into learning grammar and it doesn't mean anything, because people can just get away without studying grammar at all. It's easy to use the excuse that the language is naturally changing, but it isn't.
It isn't changing untill it is changing in grammar books. In my experience, if your english is "native speaker" level, it would mean that you can speak fluently, but your grammar is horrible. This also makes every native speaker look bad in general. Do you have a question? Submit your question here. Yes No. All Rights Reserved. Share on Twitter. Email will not be published. Please enter your comment here. Learn More ». The Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary.
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