hii,

I am learning English for around 5 years and I still can’t comprehend the meaning of “would” and “count” in some context. are they just past form of “will” and “can”?

“would you like coffee” means a person is asking if you liked coffee in past? “I would do it” means I did it in past?

I really don’t understand since my language doesn’t have anything like those words.

Edit: Thank you for answering my naive question :)

  • stoly@lemmy.world
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    6 months ago

    They don’t have their own meaning. They modify the tense and mood of the sentence. In many languages, this is built into the verb but English doesn’t have that power. As a result, you have to use external modifiers.