BrainKing - Discussion boards (Languages)

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Languages

Ask questions or just talk about different languages. Since BrainKing is an international game site supporting many languages, this board can be kind of useful.

Since we will be dealing with pronunciation of words rather than their spelling, I think it's useful to have a link to The sounds of English and the International Phonetic Alphabet.

To see translations of some frequently used phrases and sentences in other languages see Languages

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17. February 2009, 18:07:35

coan.net

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Subject: Re: May, might, could

Pedro Martínez: Well just reading what you wrote, I personally would use all three words - with the same exact meaning / probability.

After doing some quick searches on the internet, might is actually the past tense of may.

As another side note about adding "NOT" to the words:

"Could not" vs. "Might not"

Jack could not have the key. - means you didn't do that. (100% probability)

Jack might not have the key. - means there is a chance.
Jack may not have the key. - means there is a chance.

... so adding "not" changes it.

Anyway, here are a couple of sites that I quickly took these thoughts from:

http://www.englishpage.com/modals/could.html
http://esl.lbcc.cc.ca.us/eesllessons/maymight/maymight.htm (has quiz at bottom)
http://grammar.quickanddirtytips.com/may-might.aspx