AEE 2705: Could Have, Should Have or Must Have?

This is an All Ears English podcast, episode 2705. Could have, should have, or must have. Welcome to the All Ears English Podcast, downloaded more than 200 million times. Are you feeling stuck with your English?

We'll show you how to become fearless and fluent by focusing on connection, not perfection, with your American hosts, Aubrey Carter, the IELTS whiz, and Lindsay McMahon, the English adventurer. coming to you from Arizona and Colorado, USA. To get real-time transcripts right on your phone and create your personalized vocabulary list, try the All Ears English app for iOS and Android. Start your seven-day free trial at allearsenglish.com forward slash app.

When you talk about regrets, make guesses, or speculate about past possibilities, don't get confused between these modals. Listen in today to learn the difference and what to use when.

Sometimes English learners think their problem is vocabulary, but often the issue is something deeper. It's hesitation. You pause to translate. You pause to check grammar.

You pause to search for the perfect word. Those small pauses add up and interrupt the natural flow of conversation. You can respond with ease without constantly analyzing every sentence. Our free two-minute fluency quiz will show you your current level and what skills you need to improve.

Go to allearsenglish.com slash fluency score. That's allearsenglish.com slash f-l-u-e-n-c-y-s-c-o-r-e. Hey, Lindsay, how are you today? Hey, Aubrey, I'm feeling good today.

How are you? How's everything? I am great. I have a question for you. All right. What is something you should have done last week, but didn't get to? Oh my gosh.

There's always something, right? Let's see. There's a lot of work things. A lot of emails I have not returned that people are waiting and I went on vacation last week.

So that's probably not so good, but I will get to it eventually, right? Right. Exactly. We all have this. Something we should have done last week, something on our to-do list.

We weren't able to get to it. But what's interesting is how would that be different if I had said, what's something you could have done last week, but didn't get to or...

Oh, good question. We wouldn't even say it that way, right? These modals really change the question, right? It really does. When you say what's something you could have done, it's more like it would have been voluntary.

It would have been an optional thing. Whereas should have returned those emails. Those people are waiting to hear back. Yes, it's very different, right?

Kind of very optional, not something on your to-do list of things that have to get done. Yeah. So we got a great question about this on YouTube about the differences between some of these modals. Do you want to read that question for us, Lindsay?

Yes, yes. This is from Cypher Ahmad Sendiki, 1871. Great handle there. Dears, would you talk about the differences between could have, should have, and must have?

Hmm. Such a great question, right? These are all modal verbs that are used to make guesses, express regret, or talk about past possibilities. And it really does change.

Like the feeling of what you're asking or the meaning of what you're saying changes a lot depending on which one you use. Massively. So we're going to make sure we clear this up for our listeners today. And I'm sure many of our listeners have the same question, right?

Are wondering the same thing. Yes. Guys, before we go any further, though, make sure you hit the follow button right here on All Our English. Pretty soon we're getting, well, we're in the fall already, aren't we, Aubrey?

We're well into the fall. Yes. We want to be really lined up with our learning. If you get addicted to all ears English, you will see the improvement.

We've had so many students tell us they just listen five days a week and they're listening improved enormously. So become one of those people. All right. Yes, absolutely.

I love that. I love hearing that feedback from students for sure. Yeah. All right. So let's share really quick, right off the top here, the grammar of this.

For each of these, the grammar structure is the same. So that helps at least. You have this modal, either could, should, or must, and then they're all structured the same. After that, you're going to have the word have, and then the past participle, right?

So something you should have done, must have done, would have, all of the past participle will be different for every verb, depending on what you're talking about. But the structure is always the same. Yes. Perfect.

So keep that in mind, guys, as we go through all three of these, it's always the same structure. So that offers a little bit of, I don't know, it's a little calming to know that. I think so, right? The grammar is a little easier here.

It's what's tricky is the context, the meaning, which one should you choose depending on what you want to say. Exactly. All right. So should we go into could have Aubrey first, the very first one?

Yeah, let's do it. Okay. So this is talking about past possibilities, something you could have done, right? So Aubrey, tell us more about this. Yeah. So you're going to use it when you think something was possible, but you aren't sure.

So for example, she could have taken the earlier train, right? So we're saying like, I could have done that. We think that was a possibility, right? This could have happened, but you can't be sure with could have.

Otherwise, you would use a different modal that expresses more surety, more certainty. Right, right. She could have taken the earlier train. They could have missed our message, right?

They like basically saying another way to say this would be they might have missed our message. Right. Exactly. Same meaning, right? You're saying that something was a possibility.

You don't know for sure. You're giving a possibility. And we use this a lot when something has gone wrong or something hasn't worked out like we thought it would. We're saying what might have been, what could have been, but we don't know for sure.

Yes. Yes. Or it could have been a misunderstanding, right? Maybe the person said something and you misunderstood them or they didn't mean to say it in the way that you received it or something like that.

Right. This I use a lot if someone's sharing with me something that happened with a friend and the friend's response doesn't make sense from what I know about them, right? You're seeing this disconnect. Yeah.

And so this might be how you, instead of saying, that is terrible, they're a terrible person, you might say something like this, maybe it was a misunderstanding or it could have been a misunderstanding. You're trying to give the other person grace because what you're hearing about them doesn't match up with what you know about them. Yes. And also give the person the benefit of the doubt is what you're doing here, right?

Exactly. I think that's a really good way to go through life. You just give people the benefit of the doubt and assume things are just a misunderstanding. I love it.

It's going to prevent a lot of problems if you do that, because often when we assume the worst, we're wrong, right? We end up apologizing. We're like, you know what? I shouldn't have believed that about you.

I shouldn't have assumed that about you without knowing for sure. And then we feel like a jerk, right? Because our mind was going in that direction. Yeah.

So it's a good way to go through life. A connection, right? But we use this could have another way. And it's about missed opportunities, right? If someone had the ability or opportunity to do something but didn't, we'll use this as well.

For example, she could have won the race if she hadn't gotten injured. Or you could have asked me for help, right? If you were confused, didn't know what to do, you could have asked me for help. Yeah, we do this a lot, right?

When something goes wrong after the fact, we will sometimes think about like, what could have happened that would have improved the situation? And we might say that to someone like, you could have done this, you could have done that. Sometimes that's not the advice we want to get, what we could have done differently. I know, what a bummer, right?

Sometimes we should avoid telling people what they could have done. Yeah. Right, right, right, right. It can be because at that point, you can't do much about it, right?

Just for the future, right? Exactly. Aubrey, how is should have different? Yeah, this is similar, but this is used to talk about something that was the right thing to do, but didn't happen.

It often expresses regret or criticism. So the difference here really is could have doesn't have that implication of that was the right thing to do. It's sort of just like a possibility, whereas should have means like this is what should have happened. Yeah.

Like I said, I should have replied to some emails before I left for vacation, right? But I didn't, right? This thing should have happened. I should have gone to bed earlier, right?

I stayed up too late. Are you someone that stays up late watching Netflix, Aubrey, sometimes? Not usually. I'm more of an early, you know, early to bed, early to rise.

But every now and then, sometimes on weekends, I will. And then the next morning, if I have something early, I'll say this. Oh, I should have gone to bed earlier. You feel the results.

right yeah or we should have left earlier right maybe something happens something goes wrong you're like hmm we should have left an hour ago and we wouldn't have had to deal with this yes there's always a moment in a party if you're at a party or something or you're out and you know it's the right time to leave but then sometimes you override your intuition do you ever do that you say oh no we should stay a little longer i should have your partner open to be another drink and you're like oh

I should have listened to that little voice in my head that knew better. It's so true. There's always a moment of clarity. Oh, so funny. All right. Have you ever listened to native speakers and thought, I understand the words, but I still feel slightly lost.

That's because real English conversations include more than vocabulary. There's speed, there's connected speech, there are cultural references and casual phrases. Your brain has to process all of this in real time. If conversations sometimes feel overwhelming, it may simply mean you're ready for the next level of training.

Find out your exact level with our quick, free fluency quiz. Go to allearsenglish.com slash fluency score. That's allearsenglish.com slash F-L-U-E-N-C-Y-S-C-O-R-E.

Okay, Aubrey, we're moving on to must have. Tell us about this one. Yeah, this is a little different. This is when you are almost certain that something happened in the past because of some kind of evidence, right?

So this isn't so much about like what could have happened, what should have happened. This is you have some more concrete evidence to be able to say like, it must have been that way. This must have been the case. Yeah.

So for example, she must have forgotten our meeting. Now the evidence is that you knew that you had a meeting scheduled and she didn't show up. So we're assuming that this is definitely what happened. She forgot the meeting.

Right. Yeah. It's interesting. This really means that we have some kind of concrete reason to think that. Otherwise, we could be saying she could have gotten stuck in traffic.

She could have woken up late. But for some reason, something's happened to give us some kind of evidence. Oh, she must have forgotten all about it. Yes, yes, exactly.

Or he must have left already because his car isn't there or isn't here. So we have evidence, right? Well, his car's gone. He must have left already. So it's when we see that evidence, we're not going to say he could have left.

His car's not here. We wouldn't say he should have left, right? This is where we have some kind of evidence. So that's when we would say this must be the case.

He must have left. Yeah. So quite different from the other two. So we're going to see how they all come together into a little conversation. Aubrey, what is going on in this role play?

Yeah. So we are friends who were supposed to see each other at a birthday party last night, but didn't. So let's see what happened. I'll start us out.

Where were you last night? We missed you at Jake's birthday party. Oh, no. Was that last night? I must have mixed up the dates. I should have called you when I saw you weren't there.

I just assumed you couldn't make it. If I had remembered, I could have at least let Jake know I wouldn't be there. Oh, that's not good. Totally missed the party.

Right. But this happens to all of us, right? This happens to me. I'll mix up dates. I'll mix up times and you just miss it. And this is when we need these modals.

And you can see how, depending on what you're trying to say, you have to choose the right one or you could cause confusion. Oh, for sure. For sure. Great.

Let's go back through it. So what did we choose in terms of the first modal? You said, where were you last night? We missed you at Jake's birthday party.

And I said, oh, no, was that last night? I must have mixed up the dates. Why did I use musts? there. Yeah, this is interesting. So this is your reason, right?

This is the evidence. You definitely could have say, I think I mixed up the dates or I mixed up the dates. We use must have here to sort of separate ourselves from the blame of something happening. I've noticed this and this is an interesting, very subtle nuance of English, right?

Oh, I must have mixed up the dates. Interesting. Yeah, it's very subtle, right? But it is kind of separating yourself from the blame. I like that. I like that.

Right. Just highlighting that it was a mistake. It was not intentional. It was an accident. Right. Like something was out of your control. It must have messed up, right?

And then you said, I should have called you when I saw you weren't there. Right. I should have. Okay. This is a regret. Right. Exactly. Right. This is the right thing to have done.

I didn't do it because I didn't have all the information. I just assumed you couldn't make it. I didn't know you had forgotten, had mixed up the date. So now in hindsight, I'm saying what I should have done.

Oh, I should have called you. Yes. Yes, for sure. And then I said, if I had remembered, I could have at least let Jake know I wouldn't be there. Now I'm feeling bad.

So I had an option to let Jake know that I wouldn't be there. This one is maybe the trickiest one to know when to use it. This is that past possibility. It's dependent on you having more information.

If I had known I had the dates wrong, I could have let him know something. This is more like... This is not based on any evidence of what should have happened or what must have been the truth. This is very much more of like, oh, if things were different, if I had known more, then things could have been different.

Yes, completely. Love it. Great episode today. Real clear grammar episode. These are building blocks for important language when you get to the B2C1 level, guys.

So do go out and try to use these as much as you can. Absolutely right. And really be observant when you hear other people using these modals. Think about the context.

Why were they choosing one or the other? They'll become more and more familiar so that they're just naturally coming up and you're able to use them correctly. Love it. Guys, go on over and check out 2704 as your next step.

The title of this episode is, Are You Giving Fluency? We talked about this, it's giving phrase, right? Yes, this is a fun new slang, has become very popular, definitely. Scroll up and check that one out if you missed it.

Yeah, we had fun creating that episode. So I'm sure you'll have fun listening to it, guys. Go check it out. Aubrey, what is your final takeaway on this episode today?

Where should we leave our listeners? I feel like there are so many connection moments that are possible and connections that can be hurt if we use the wrong modal, right? We talked about this a few times throughout the episode. You don't always want to tell someone what they should have done, right?

Or what could have been different because sometimes it doesn't help if we can't go back and change it, right? Yeah. Well, that's actually a really good point that we didn't talk about quite as much in the episode, but going and reprimanding someone by saying, oh, you should have done this. You should have done that.

Be careful there. Right? I know. We've all been in that situation where someone tells us that and we're like, thanks. That's really helpful now that I can't go back.

Yeah. Thanks, but no thanks. Yeah, exactly. So play around with your words, right? It's okay to offer feedback and let people know what would have been better to have done, right?

It's important to communicate that. I should have done this. I could have done that. But to say it for someone else is usually not constructive. It's not very helpful.

So we can get a little bit more wordsmithy here, the way we choose our words, especially at work, right? If you're in a management position, you have to offer feedback. You have to let people know the correct way to do things, but we can choose words differently. Right.

Instead of saying like, going forward, let's do this next time is so much better than that. You should have done this, which is much more blunt. Exactly. You got it.

Great episode today, Aubrey. We'll see you very soon. All right. Thanks, Lindsay. See you next time. Okay. Take care. Bye. Thanks for listening to All Ears English.

Would you like to know your English level? Take our two minute quiz. Go to allearsenglish.com forward slash fluency score. And if you believe in connection, not perfection, then hit subscribe now to make sure you don't miss anything.

See you next time.