Expressing regrets in English.
If you have regrets; that means you have done something in the past and you aren’t happy about it’s results…So we have a condition which we can’t change now because we have done it and also we have experienced the results of it.
Under this type of conditions, we need to use third conditional (Type 3) also known as «Unreal Conditionals»…
On the contrary of type 1 and 2, we don’t have situations on now and later. Our condition was in the past and results have been experienced either in the past or at the moment of speaking…
We can express our regrets with «wish clause» instead of third conditional…
We need to use unreal wish clauses in this case.
- Days are so short in winter. –> I wish days were longer.
- She’s sorry she never wins a match. –> She wishes she won a single match.
- He works very little. –> I wish he worked harder.
