A clean grammar explanation with examples notes about states

Categories: Basic English

The Grammar of “Would”

✅ What Would Can Do

1. Describe Repeated Actions in the Past (like used to)
   
   
• When we were kids, we would play cricket every evening.
  
  
• My grandfather would tell us stories after dinner.
  Think of “would” here as “used to” but only for actions, not conditions.
  
  
2. Polite Requests & Offers
3. Would you mind reviewing this PR?
• 
  
• I would be happy to help.
  
  
4. Hypothetical Situations
• If we had more time, we would refactor the module.
  
  
• If I won the lottery, I would buy a house.
  
  
5. Preferences
• I would rather use Kotlin for this feature.
  
  
• I would prefer coffee instead of tea.
  
  

❌ What Would Cannot Do

• “Would” is not used to describe states or conditions in the past.
  
  
• Incorrect: She would be tired after work.
  
  
• Correct: She used to be tired after work. / She was tired after work.
  
  

 What Are “States” in Grammar?

A state refers to a condition or situation that is static, ongoing, or non-dynamic.

• Emotions: love, hate, enjoy
  
  
• Possession: have, own
  
  
• Mental states: know, believe, understand
  
  
• Physical states: be tired, be hungry
  
  

 Use “was/were” or “used to” for states, not “would.”

 Common Mistakes with “Would”

1. Using would for states
   
• ❌ The team would be frustrated during long release cycles.
  
  
• ✅ The team was frustrated during long release cycles.
  
  
2. Confusing would with will in conditionals
   
• ❌ If I will win the lottery, I will buy a house.
  
  
• ✅ If I won the lottery, I would buy a house.
  
  
3. Misusing would for universal truths
   
• ❌ If water reaches 100°C, it would boil.
  
  
• ✅ If water reaches 100°C, it boils.
  
  
4. Overusing would in technical documents
   
• ❌ The script would execute the test cases.
  
  
• ✅ The script executes the test cases.
  
  

 Tips for Technical Leads

• In code reviews:
  
  
• ✅ Every Friday, I would review the team’s pull requests. (past habit)
  
  
• In design discussions:
  
  
• ✅ The service would retry after a timeout. (hypothetical modeling)
  
  
• In documentation:
  
  
• ✅ This function returns the result. (use present tense for actual behavior)
  
  

✅ Correct Uses of Would in Context

• Code Reviews: Every Friday, I would review the team’s pull requests before deployment.
  
  
• Daily Standups: During the last sprint, the team would start standups at 9:30 AM sharp.
  
  
• Mentoring: Back in 2022, I would mentor junior developers on debugging techniques every week.
  
  
• Issue Tracking: Whenever a bug was reported, I would log it in JIRA and assign it to the right owner.
  
  

 In short:

• Use would for repeated actions in the past, polite requests, hypotheticals, and preferences.
• Do not use would for states (use was/were or used to instead).