student asking question

Does the meaning of this sentence change if I use "would want" instead of "would have wanted"?

teacher

Native speaker’s answer

Rebecca

Yes, the meaning would change slightly if you changed "would have wanted" to "would want" here. "She would have wanted" in this context implies that the subject of the sentence is no longer alive or available, since "have" is past tense. "Would want" on the other hand only shows a conditional, and is not past tense. Therefore "would want" in this context would indicate that the subject in this situation would still want the speaker to have something in the present tense, since they are not spoken about in past tense.

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