WOULD + love | prefer (politeness)

Here is a list of verbs that can be used to express wishes or preferences:

• Like
• Prefer

I‘d prefer to keep English 

the first language in this household.

Easy Virtue

The difference between “I’d prefer to keep English the first language in this household” and “I prefer to keep English the first language in this household” is that the former is more polite and indirect. It is a way of expressing a preference without sounding too forceful or demanding. The latter is more direct and assertive. It is a way of stating a preference in a clear and straightforward manner.

Both sentences convey the same basic meaning, but the use of “would” in the first sentence makes it sound more polite and less confrontational. It is a way of expressing a preference without making it sound like a demand.

• Love

It‘s a shame though, 

that we are not competing this year,

coz I would love to win back what‘s rightfully ours.

listen to this example

The sentence could be rephrased as “I would really like to win back what’s rightfully ours, but unfortunately we are not competing this year.” The use of “would” in this sentence conveys the same sense of desire and regret as the original sentence.

Please note that the use of “would” in this context is informal and conversational. It is not typically used in formal writing or speech.

• Hate

What I‘m saying is, I would hate to see you make a mistake.

listen

• Fancy (is quite rare with ‘would’)
• Desire (sounds very old fashioned with ‘would’)
• Crave | Yearn (don’t collocate well with ‘would’)
• ‘Would rather‘

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Profiling Research

There is a slight clash of levels in the English Grammar Profile for the following grammar.

A2 point 39 in MODALITY is defined as:

‘would’ with a wide range of verbs to talk about wishes and preferences.

*’the wide range’ can be understood by the example sentences in the EGP which only contain ‘love’ and ‘prefer.’

B1 point 34 in VERBS/patterns is defined as:

‘would prefer’ + ‘to’ infinitive, often for politeness.

*The main difference is that ‘prefer is connected to politeness.  But the way the EGP has it worded, makes it sound as though it is not essential to give this a B1 marker type of status.  In the comments section in EGP for this point:

Would prefer to is often but not exclusively used to be more polite.

Also note that all the examples for both grammar points start with the subject ‘I’ and contractions are mixed in.

Since we are not sure if ‘would prefer’ is B1 or A2, we can turn to the English Vocabulary Profile:

Prefer = A2 to like someone or something more than another person or thing
would prefer = A2 used to say what you want or ask someone what they want

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On iWeb corpus we did a search for collocates.

WOULD LOVE

1 SEE 38487

2 HEAR 29108
3 WIN 3245
4 THOUGHTS 2993
5 FEEDBACK 2614
6 JOIN 2172
7 PERSONALLY 1157
8 SUGGESTIONS 933
9 CHAT 640
10 OPINIONS 496

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WOULD PREFER

1 RECEIVE 820

2 STAY 819

3 PERSONALLY 807
4 AVOID 604
5 REMAIN 432
6 IDEALLY 136
7 FULL-TIME 124
8 RESPONDENTS 94
9 PART-TIME 88
10 ENQUIRY 66

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Although there is a B1 point for a specific list of lexical verbs to be less direct, such as advise, recommend, imagine, say, we believe being able to use “would” with any wide range of lexical verbs should be a grammar point noted at the B1 level.

Here are the top 100 most frequent lexical verbs following the modal verb ‘would’ in the iWeb corpus:

would _VVI

The 5 most common B1 lexical verbs: recommend, expect, allow, suggest, require

And I would recommend that you not wait

 until you‘re an old guy like me to do it.

listen

In the sentence above, “would” makes the recommendation more polite and less direct. It is also a bit more tentative, suggesting that the speaker is not trying to force their advice on the listener.

The 5 most common B2 lexical verbs: affect, appreciate, assume, cause, enable

Any fallout from his capture would cause a major embarrassment for the government.

listen

In this case, “would” is used to express the possibility that his capture could cause a major embarrassment for the government.  In other words, the sentence is saying that if he is captured, it is likely that it will cause a major embarrassment for the government.