Wish and If Only (Regrets and Wishes)

Level: B2. Wish and if only let you talk about how you want things to be different — a present you would change, or a past you regret. The trick is that the tense after them moves one step back: you use a past form for a present wish, and a past perfect for a past regret.

The rule

A wish sentence says that reality is not the way you want it. Like conditionals, it uses a “backshifted” tense: the verb goes one step into the past to signal this is unreal. If only works exactly like wish but adds emphasis and emotion — it is the dramatic version.

Wish + past simple is for an unreal present: something you want to be different now. “I wish I knew the answer” means I don’t know it now. “I wish I had more time” means I don’t have enough time. With the verb be, careful English uses were for all subjects: “I wish I were taller.” You can also use wish + could for a present ability you lack: “I wish I could swim.”

Wish + past perfect is for a past regret: something you wish had been different in the past. “I wish I had studied harder” means I didn’t study hard, and I regret it. “I wish I hadn’t said that” means I did say it, and I regret it. This is the same “unreal past” meaning as the third conditional.

There is a third pattern, wish + would, for complaining about someone else’s annoying behaviour (“I wish you would listen”). Because it works differently — it is about change, not a state you control — it has its own lesson. For a wish about yourself or a state, use the past or past perfect, not would: say “I wish I were rich,” not “I wish I would be rich.”

Forms

The contraction ’d appears in the past-regret pattern: “I wish I’d known” is “I wish I had known.” After wish, the second verb never takes will or a present tense — the whole point is that it is unreal.

Example sentences

Common mistakes

• ❌ I wish I will have more time. → ✅ I wish I had more time. After wish, never use will; a present wish takes the past simple.
• ❌ I wish I know the answer. → ✅ I wish I knew the answer. A present wish backshifts to the past simple, not the present.
• ❌ I wish I studied harder for yesterday’s exam. → ✅ I wish I had studied harder for yesterday’s exam. A past regret needs the past perfect, not the past simple.
• ❌ I wish I was you. → ✅ I wish I were you. With be after wish, careful English uses were for every subject.
• ❌ I wish I would be taller. → ✅ I wish I were taller. For a wish about your own state, use the past (were), not would — would is for others’ behaviour.
• ❌ If only I would have known. → ✅ If only I had known. A past regret uses the past perfect (had known), never would have.

A short conversation

A: I failed the driving test again. B: Oh no. I wish I could help you practise. A: Thanks. If only I had booked more lessons before the test. B: Don’t be hard on yourself. I wish the test weren’t so strict in the first place.

Usage notes

• were, not was. After wish, standard English uses were for all subjects, especially in writing: “I wish he were here.” “I wish I was” is common in speech but avoided in careful English.
• wish + could. For a present ability you lack, use could: “I wish I could sing.” For a missed past possibility, use could have: “I wish I could have stayed longer.”
• ’d means had. In “I wish I’d known,” the ’d is had (past perfect), signalling a past regret.
• if only is stronger. If only carries more emotion than wish and often stands alone as an exclamation: “If only!” It uses the identical tense rules.
• Not the same as hope. Use hope for real, possible futures (“I hope it’s sunny tomorrow”); use wish for the unreal (“I wish it were sunny” = but it isn’t).

How to say it

A few sounds in wish sentences get blurred in natural speech.

• wish /wɪʃ/. Short i (as in fish) and a soft sh at the end. Not “weesh”.
• ’d → /d/ = had. In “I wish I’d known”, the ’d is had, reduced to a quick /d/ on the pronoun. Expand it to had when you need to be clear.
• were /wɜː(r)/. “I wish I were” uses “wur” (the vowel of her), not the sound of we’re.
• could /kʊd/. The l is silent: say “kood”, rhyming with good. Same for would and should.

Compared with…

• Third conditional carries the same past regret, framed as cause and result: “I wish I had studied” is the feeling behind “If I had studied, I would have passed.” The wish states the regret; the conditional adds the imagined result. See Third Conditional (Unreal Past).
• Wish + would is for annoyance at someone’s behaviour or a desired change by others: “I wish you would stop” (not a state you control). Keep it separate from wish + past for your own wishes. See Wish/If Only + would (Complaints).

Quick recap before you practise.

Practice

Quiz

Recap cheat-sheet

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