B2 First · Grammar · Pattern 5 of 10
The structures that use a past tense to talk about now — wish I spoke, it's time we went, I'd rather you didn't.
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I'm sorry I don't speak French.
WISH
I French.
All four structures share one idea: a past tense that is not about the past. 'I wish I spoke French' is about now; the past form marks the sentence as unreal, the same way it does in a second conditional. 'It's time we went' means we should go now. 'I'd rather you didn't smoke' is a present preference. Part 4 tests whether you have made that connection or are still translating word by word.
The tense moves back one step according to when the wish is about. A regret about the past takes past perfect — 'I wish I had learned the piano' — and 'if only' does exactly the same with more feeling. The one exception is annoyance at another person's behaviour, which takes 'would': 'I wish you would stop'.
The present tense. 'I wish I speak', 'it's time we go' — both read naturally to a Czech speaker because Czech does not use tense this way, and both lose the mark. The past form is the entire point of the structure.
'Would rather' with a second person. When the subject changes after 'rather', the verb goes into the past: 'I'd rather you didn't'. When the subject stays the same, it is a bare infinitive: 'I'd rather stay at home'. Two different grammars behind one phrase, and the exam likes to test the difference.
Find the time of the thing you regret or prefer. Now or generally: past simple. Already happened: past perfect. Somebody else's irritating habit: 'would'. The key word tells you the frame — WISH, ONLY, TIME, RATHER — and the timing tells you the tense inside it.
'If only' and 'wish' are interchangeable in every item; the key word decides which you write. 'It's time' has variants — 'high time', 'about time' — and the drill accepts them, but the plain form is never wrong.
'Wish + would' is for something you want another person or thing to change — 'I wish you would stop', 'I wish it would stop raining'. You cannot use it about yourself ('I wish I would' is wrong) or about a state that nobody controls. For those, past simple or past perfect.
With a subject, yes: 'it's time we went'. Without one it takes a to-infinitive — 'it's time to go' — and both mean the same. Part 4 gives you the subject in the second sentence when it wants the past form.
