Wish - imaginary situations

Present and Future

I wish that my teacher gave us extra points. - I wish that my teacher would give us extra points.

Note: we never use was in this case, we use were for all the nouns

I wish we were
I wish she were
I wish he were
I wish this class weren’t so confusing.

She wishes that

They wish that

I wish i knew what my student was talking about.

wish + past simple is used to express that we want a situation in the present (or
future) to be different.

• Use wish + simple past to talk about things that you want to be true in the present, but that are
not yet true.
• In the present, use were, instead of was, after wish to talk about those situations that are not
yet true.
• Use wish + could or would (not can or will ) + the base form of the verb to talk about things that
you hope will be true in the future.

Examples:

Linlin wishes there were more after-school programs.

I wish we had a swimming pool.

I wish (that) the teacher could give us more activities so that we could practice our English.

I wish (that) the teacher would only give us activities to better our English but not homework
activities.
Things that we want to change

Our classroom doesn’t have a good internet connection. We wish that our classroom had a
good internet connection.
Our classroom is noisy. We wish that our classroom weren’t noisy
Our classroom doesn’t have windows.

I wish our classroom had an internet connection.

I wish it weren’t noisy.

I wish our classroom had windows.