Why would doesn't fit here?

[Deya Eviga]

English Language Proficiency Tests, Advanced Level

ESL/EFL Test #116 "Future Tenses", question 6

I really hope I ......... see you again.

(a) did
(b) shall
(c) should
(d) would

English Language Proficiency Tests, Advanced Level

ESL/EFL Test #116 "Future Tenses", answer 6

I really hope I shall see you again.

Correct answer: (b) shall

Your answer was: correct
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Why 'would' doesn't fit here?

Deya Eviga

[Alan]

Hi,

This is really the sequence of tenses. You could say I really hoped I would but here it is I really hope.

Alan
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English as a Second Language
You can read my ESL story Don't bank on it

[jon]

Please could you explain the use of wish

for example we use

"I hope I shall ..."

but "I wish I would"

It is possible to say "I wish I shall ..." ????

Thanks in advanced

[don geraldos]

When you say: "I really hope ... " you are talking now - in the present.

But what you are hoping for is in the future (for example, 'tomorrow', 'next week', 'on Wednesday'). You could say, "I really hope I shall see you tomorrow".

The future of 'to be' is: I shall, you will, he/she/it will, we shall, you will, they will.

So 'shall' is correct.

If you are talking about what you had hoped for in the past (yesterday, say), you say: "I really hoped ... ".

To express the future in the past you use the conditional 'should/would': I should, you would, he/she/it would, we should, you would, they would.

'Should' goes with 'I' and 'we'; 'would' goes with 'you', 'he/she/it', 'they'.

[Yankee]

[don geraldos]

<<By the way, "I hope I shall" would not be natural in American English. We use "will" in the first person (singular and plural):
- I hope I will...
- I hope we will...>>

So you didn't write this test either?

"I really hope I shall see you again.
Correct answer: (b) shall
Your answer was: correct"

[Yankee]

[don geraldos]

We shall have to agree to agree to differ, then.

But we'll agree on the contraction, perhaps.

[Yankee]

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The contraction sounds like a happy compromise.
But what will we do with interrogative and negative sentences?
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Amy
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ESL teacher, translator, and a native speaker of American English

[don geraldos]

Interrogative?

Shall we dance?
On a bright cloud of music shall we fly?
Shall we dance?
Shall we then say "Goodnight and mean "Goodbye"?
Or perchance,
When the last little star has left the sky,
Shall we still be together
With are arms around each other
And shall you be my new romance?
On the clear understanding
That this kind of thing can happen,
Shall we dance?
Shall we dance?
Shall we Dance?

I shan't say no more

[Yankee]

.
Ahem...
And what nationality was Anna in The King and I?
(Hint: She was not American.)

Only one of the "shall" sentences in your post would be normal in AmE. If you would like more details about the very limited usage of shall in AmE, just use the search function on this site. There has been at least one thread about this already.
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_________________
Amy
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ESL teacher, translator, and a native speaker of American English

[don geraldos]

Ahem... Wasn't Oscar, who wrote the words, the only Oscar to receive an Oscar, an All-Merican boy?

For the sake of any learners following this thread, which is the one Oscar Hammerstein "shall" sentence that would be normal in American English [and which one is grammatically incorrect]?

Anna was based on a Welsh schoolteacher, the King was Siamese: does that make the sentence at the start of this thread, 'I really hope I shall see you again', grammatically incorrect - or just un-American?

[Yankee]

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"Shall we dance" is the only one that would be appropriate in AmE.

In a nutshell, shall is basically only used in a couple of fixed formats: sometimes to offer to do something, sometimes to make a suggestion, and sometimes in "legalese". Shan't is not used in the US (unless someone is possibly attempting to imitate a Brit).

There are several points that can be made about the song you quoted. One is that the woman singing it was not American -- neither Anna nor Deborah Kerr. The lyrics reflect this. Out of curiosity, do all of the "shall-sentences" in those lyrics sound appropriate and natural to a British ear? It's probably also worth noting that those lyrics are now over 50 years old -- i.e. hardly the most up-to-date example that could have been selected anyway.

The "death" of shall began in the AmE quite some time ago. In AmE, we use will in the 1st, 2nd and 3rd person to form a future "tense". I've heard that shall is now slowly dying in the UK, too. Any truth to that rumor?
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_________________
Amy
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ESL teacher, translator, and a native speaker of American English

[don geraldos]

What, grammatically, is the difference between:

Shall we dance?

Shall we fly?

There isn't any, surely?

All the other sentences [except "And shall you be my new romance?", where "And will you ..." would be correct] are as grammatically correct as the test sentence, "I really hope I shall see you again". Given they are words of a song, I should not expect them to sound 'natural', but they are grammatically correct.

[Yankee]

Hi Don

I am not arguing that the use of shall is not the/a correct method to build a future tense in the UK (and only in the first person, right?). But the fact that a particular word, idiom or usage is valid in the UK does not automatically guarantee its validity in the US.

There are a host of things that determine whether a particular sentence or usage is or should be viewed as "correct". Is the collocation "white and black" equal to "black and white"? Isn't "black and white" more idiomatic and typical? We have a definite article in English. Is it spelled the or ye? Which version is "correct"? And while we're at it, did I spell the past participle of the verb spell "correctly"?

I don't see "Shall we fly?" in your quote, but if that sentence were to be uttered by an American, it would likely be intended simply as a suggestion to travel by plane (rather than by car/train/bus/etc). In American English, the use of shall to make a suggestion or to offer to do something is basically limited to this sort of short interrogative sentence. If you change "Shall we fly?" to an affirmative sentence ("We shall fly") or a negative sentence (We shall not fly"), the function of the sentence as a suggestion is lost and the use of shall is no longer idiomatic in AmE.

That was my original point. The word 'shall' is not used to build the future in American English. We use the word 'will' instead:
"I really hope I will see you again."

The test sentence may reflect natural and correct usage in British English, but with the word 'shall' in it, the sentence is not at all typical in American English.
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_________________
Amy
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ESL teacher, translator, and a native speaker of American English