BrainKing - Discussion boards (Languages)

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, 16:24:38

Pedro Martínez

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Subject: May, might, could

I would like to ask native speakers of the English language to tell me what difference in terms of probability they feel when they use the following words: MAY, MIGHT and COULD. To be more specific, let's think about these sentences:

1. He may be late.
2. He might be late.
3. He could be late.

Is it more probable that he will be late if I use MAY, for example? And to what extent? Thanks in advance for any answers.

17. February 2009, 16:54:03

awesome

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Subject: Re: May, might, could

Pedro Martínez:

IMHO, they ALL have the same level of probability :

a chance that he will be late but not actually committing to the definite of he will be.....3 ways of saying the same thing ...

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