student asking question

Can I say "Why would everyone hate me?" instead?

teacher

Native speaker’s answer

Rebecca

That's a great question. Unfortunately, if you were to replace "does" with "would" it would chance the nuance of the sentence. "Does" is a primary auxiliary verb used in the simple present tense. As you know, we use the simple present tense is when we want to talk about general truths or facts. In the case of this clip, the duckling believes that everyone hates him. He thinks it is a truth/fact, which is why he uses "does". if we were to use "would" it would give a nuance of "everyone" hating him not being a fact, this is because we use " would" to talk about imaginary situations. Which would be wrong, since he believes that everyone hates him. Ex: Why does he always eat all the candy? Ex: Why would he eat all the candy?

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