# EN: wouldn't, won't



## itka

Je suis en train de m'embrouiller gravement entre "will not" "would not" "won't" et "wouldn't" - si ça existe ! 
Est-ce que quelqu'un voudrait bien m'éclairer sur ces différentes formes abrégées ou non ? merci !


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## jann

Bonjour itka ! 

Won't = will not = auxiliary in simple future
eg., He won't go to the museum with you. / _Il n'ira au musée pas avec toi._

Wouldn't = would not = auxiliary in conditional
eg., If he were sick, he wouldn't go out. / _S'il était malade, il ne sortirait pas.
_
Est-ce que ça aide ?


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## pyan

"Will not" and the contraction "won't" can also mean refusal. 
The dog won't obey me!  _Le chien ne veut pas m'obéir!

_"Would not" and the contraction "wouldn't" can also mean refusal in the past.
The dog would not obey me this morning!  _Le chien n'a pas voulu m'obéir ce matin!

_(I hope this is useful.)


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## itka

Je vais de découverte en découverte !

On apprend généralement que _will_ a un sens de volonté, mais je croyais qu'on restait au futur... Quant à _would_, j'avais bien compris qu'il avait un emploi au passé, mais pas du tout qu'il s'agissait là aussi de l'expression d'une volonté...
Merci Pyan, pour ce nouvel éclairage !


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## jann

[…]


			
				itka said:
			
		

> Quant à _would_, j'avais bien compris qu'il avait un emploi au passé


Et c'est là la source de la confusion...   On peut bien employer "would" pour exprimer une habitude ou une action répétée dans le passé, là où on mettrait l'imparfait en français !  Dans ces cas, "would" est synonyme de "used to".

e.g.,
In the morning, he would read the paper over breakfast. / _Le matin, il lisait le journal au petit déjeuner._
Every afternoon, the children would take a nap. / _Chaque après-midi, les enfants faisaient la sieste.
_
Je me dis que cet emploi à l'affirmatif doit se baser sur le même modèle que les exemples au négatif de pyan : c'est le conditionnel qui indique la volonté voire la concrétisation de cette volonté en action...


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## itka

Hem... ça se complique de nouveau ! 
Bon, ce que j'ai compris :
would : auxiliaire du conditionnel (je pense qu'il n'y a pas de problème à ce sujet)
would : "auxiliaire" marque d'une habitude ou répétition
would : forme négative, _wouldn't_, marque d'une opposition dans le passé

_Alors, qu'est-ce que je dois choisir, pour traduire :
The children wouldn't take a nap._
1. Les enfants ne feraient pas de sieste
2. Les enfants ne faisaient pas de sieste
3. Les enfants ne voulaient pas faire la sieste

C'est peut-être au choix selon le contexte ?


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## stoky

Itka, The children wouldn't take a nap...C'est le temps passé en anglais. Je dirais Les enfants ne voulaient pas faire la sieste.
Les enfants ne feraient pas de sieste si la mére n'était pas là.  Il faut ajouter l'autre partie de la phrase=The children would not take a nap if the mother were not there.
Les enfants ne faisaient pas de sieste.  Il faut ajouter des mots en anglais=Les enfants ne faisaient pas de sieste quand je suis entrée dans leur chambre. The children were not taking a nap when I entered their room.
C'est selon le contexte, bien sûr, mais sauf les enfants ne voulaient pas faire la sieste, il faut ajouter qq'chose pour le faire claire.


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## pyan

itka said:


> _Alors, qu'est-ce que je dois choisir, pour traduire :
> The children wouldn't take a nap.
> _[...]
> C'est peut-être au choix selon le contexte ?


As Jann said, one of the functions of "would" is to show that an action was routine, habitual in the past.  Her example of the children taking a nap was a good one:  "Every afternoon, the children would take a nap. / _Chaque après-midi, les enfants faisaient la sieste."  

_There are other ways of expressing the same idea ("used to", "was in the habit of" etc.) We tend to use these other ways for the negative.  "Would not" or "wouldn't" can be used to show that something did not happen on a regular basis, but it is unusual.

I translated your three examples back to English to help *me* understand better.
*
1. Les enfants ne feraient pas de sieste.* 
The children wouldn't take a nap... (unless a condition was met, as Stoky said.)  _No problem here.

_ *2. Les enfants ne faisaient pas de sieste*. 
(We wouldn't really say  _Chaque après-midi, les enfants ne faisaient pas la sieste", would we?  I had to keep reminding myself this is just an exercise.)_

The children didn't take a nap. (It was not part of their routine.) 
The children used not to take a nap. (Similar meaning.)
("The children wouldn't take a nap" is a possible translation with a similar meaning.  It is not the one that comes into my mind immediately.)  

The children were not taking a nap ... (at a particular point in time, when something else happened, as Stoky said.  This would never be confused with "wouldn't take a nap".) 

*3. Les enfants ne voulaient pas faire la sieste.
*The children used to refuse to take a nap.
("The children wouldn't take a nap" is a possible translation.  It is not the one that comes into my mind immediately.)

Yes, the context is needed to make things crystal clear.


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## itka

Thank you very much Stoky and Pyan... I never thought it was so complicate !
But, _grâce à vous_, I think I understand now...

Just a last attempt to check my understanding !
If I say the next sentence, which translation would you give ?
_"Last summer, afternoons, the children wouldn't take a nap and all together have been playing football."_


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## Maître Capello

itka said:


> Just a last attempt to check my understanding !
> If I say the next sentence, which translation would you give ?
> _"Last summer, afternoons, the children wouldn't take a nap and all together have been playing football."_



Le temps de ton deuxième verbe ne me paraît pas correct… Ce serait plutôt :

_Last summer, afternoons, the children wouldn't take a nap and all together *would play* football._

Quoi qu'il en soit, je dirais que le sens est :

_L'été dernier, les enfants ne voulaient pas faire la sieste l'après-midi ; ils faisaient du foot tous ensemble._


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## HistofEng

itka said:


> _"Last summer, afternoons, the children wouldn't take a nap and all together have been playing football."_



Meilleur serait:

Last summer, the children wouldn't take afternoon naps and would play football together [instead].

Mais tu as saisi l'essence.



Maître Capello said:


> _Last summer, afternoons, the children wouldn't take a nap and all together *would play* football._
> 
> Quoi qu'il en soit, je dirais que le sens est :
> 
> _L'été dernier, les enfants ne voulaient pas faire la sieste l'après-midi ; ils faisaient du foot tous ensemble._



Aussi possible comme traduction:

_L'été dernier, les enfants ne faisaient pas la sieste l'après-midi ; ils faisaient du foot tous ensemble._


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## stoky

Je dirais en anglais:  Last summer the children wouldn't take a nap in the afternoons, but would play football together. 
Si on veut accentuer le mot tous, on dit:  Last summer the children wouldn't take a nap in the afternoons but all would play football together.
On traduit souvent le temps imparfait en francais en utilisant le mot "would" en anglais.  Quand j'étais jeune, je buvais du jus d'orange=When I was young, I would drink orange juice.   Mon père lisait le journal avant d'aller au bureau.  My father would read the newspaper before going to the office.


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## geostan

HistofEng said:


> Meilleur serait:
> 
> Last summer, the children wouldn't take afternoon naps and would play football together [instead].
> 
> Mais tu as saisi l'essence.



Just to add a little point here. I wouldn't use "would" in the second half of the sentence, but I cannot offer a rule. I would say something along these lines:

Last summer, the children wouldn't take afternoon naps but played football instead.
Cheers!


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## itka

geostan said:


> Last summer, the children wouldn't take afternoon naps but played football instead.



I just tried to use "would" to express an imperfect... According to the messages I've got upper, I think now it's possible but not very frequent... Is that what you thought too ?


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## jann

> I just tried to use "would" to express an imperfect... According to the messages I've got upper, I think now it's possible but not very frequent


Hello itka 

I have a number of thoughts which are only sort of related, and so perhaps I will number them... 

*1.* I agree that your sentence, especially with its various corrected versions, can express an imperfect (indefinitely repeated, habitual past action), because you have introduced it with "last summer..." but it is still an expression of volition in the imperfect.
_Last summer, the children wouldn't take afternoon naps....
_
*2.* "Would" and "used to" are not the only ways to express the imperfect past in English.  We can also use the simple past tense (eg., It was a beautiful day.  He thought she was very pretty. etc).  Geostan's example simply uses both forms to express what would require the _imparfait _in French.

Last summer, they played football every afternoon.
Last summer, the children wouldn't take afternoon naps but played football instead.

*3.* "Would" in the affirmative is more likely to express the imperfect past.   It is not at all infrequent.  "Wouldn't" (in the negative) is more likely to express volition, even volition in the imperfect past.  

If you say, "The children would take a nap," I automatically assume you are speaking in the imperfect (or perhaps the conditional, depending on context).  Since this statement feels incomplete, I expect you to add more information to complete this past description (or the conditional statement): _[...] les enfants faisaient la sieste [...]_. 

But if you say simply, "The children wouldn't take a nap," the sentence is complete and does not require further information.   Unless you go on to add more information about time (ie., "last summer..."), I will automatically understand this sentence as a one-time expression of refusal/volition:  _Les enfants n'ont pas voulu faire la sieste_.  (Again, as a function of context, it would be possible to have a conditional statement instead, which would require the sentence to have another clause.)

*4.  *Because of the strong association between volition and _wouldn't_, you example sentence would feel more natural if there were more context that reinforced how it is a past description (and therefore expressing an imperfect).  For example:

"Little boys grow up so quickly!  Ours aren't toddlers any more: last summer, they wouldn't take afternoon naps (they no longer took afternoon naps) but played football instead."

Still, this sentence is a bit _limite_ as an example of using "wouldn't" in the imperfect, simply because the association between not napping and refusing to take a nap is so strong, so you also have an expression of volition. Perhaps you are correct that using "wouldn't" (in the negative) to express the imperfect past is infrequent, unless you are expressing volition in the imperfect past.  Negative imperfects are more easily expressed with the the simple past, or with "would never" or with "didn't used to," etc:

When my father was younger, he would never miss (he never missed, he never used to miss) a chance to go fishing... but now that he has arthritis in his shoulder, he can't go as often. 
_Quand mon père était plus jeune, il ne manquait jamais une occasion d'aller à la pêche... _

Last summer, the children didn't nap in the afternoons; they played football instead.
_L'été dernier, les enfants ne faisaient pas de sieste...

_I didn't used to like mushrooms, but now I've acquired a taste for them.
_Avant, je n'aimais pas les champignons...

_
Now have I made things clearer or more confusing?


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## geostan

itka said:


> I just tried to use "would" to express an imperfect... According to the messages I've got upper, I think now it's possible but not very frequent... Is that what you thought too ?



I would say rather that it is not usually necessary. Other ways can be found to avoid it. My point was that the double use of would in the sentence I criticized sounded curious, perhaps because one was negative and the other positive. As I said, I'm not aware of any rule concerning it. It is simply something I would not say.

I agree with Jann's assessment of the negative form of would as an equivalent of the imperfect. The element of volition seems much stronger when it is negative.


Cheers!


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