Would یا Had

You Had Better-You’d Better

Mate, your girlfriend looks like she wants to eat me. Is she all right? She’s fine! We’ve never seen a hungry girlfriend before. She just needs pizza. No mate, I’ve seen a hungry girlfriend. That is something else. We should make her a pizza then, because she’s.. she’s really scary. Yeah, I’ll do it in a minute.

How could he say that in a different way? Could he add more meaning to it? First, let’s look at that word should. Some of my students think that “should” is the same as “must”. No, should, it’s not a rule. It’s not an obligation. You’re giving advice. You’re just saying: this is a good idea. For example, if your friend has a cut on his leg, it’s bleeding but it starts to turn green, or blue, or purple or black. Maybe you’ll say this: you should see a doctor. It’s a good idea to see a doctor. Again, it’s not an obligation. It’s not “you MUST see the doctor, you HAVE to”. It’s not that, no. You’re giving advice. That’s it.

If you use the negative “Shouldn’t”; that just means it’s a bad idea. Hmm. Maybe don’t do this. That’s my advice. For example, you shouldn’t try to sneeze with your eyes open. If you don’t know, a sneeze is the “Atchu” thing. Is that true? I don’t know. That can’t be true. Why would that be bad? I tried. And of course, the question form is like this: should I wear this to the funeral? It’s cute, right? So okay, let’s change the word “Should”. We can use “had better” to replace “should”. It basically means the same thing and grammatically, it works the same. The verb after, should be the infinitive verb. The original verb without “to”. For example, a positive sentence could be this: It’s your mum’s birthday tomorrow! You’d better buy her something nice! You’d better not mention his mum. She left her dad yesterday…for me. He’s pretty sad.

So “had better” very useful, but not as common as “should”. So when should I use “had better” and not “should”? Well, you’ll mostly hear it and use it, when there’s some urgency. So you should do this, but quickly. Come on! Now! For example, It’s 2 in the afternoon. I’d better get up, I’m getting married today. Or when it’s like, if you don’t do the thing, something bad will happen. For example if your friend has to go to the airport but he’s sitting there, playing on his phone, like I do all the time; you might say, you’d better leave because if you don’t… You’ll miss your flight, something bad will happen. Also, some of you are thinking, if I’m late for my flight, or bus, or train; shouldn’t I say, lose my flight? Lose my train? Lose my bus? Nope, the verb is miss. You miss your flight, miss your bus, miss your train.

It could be a threat, like for example, where is my money? You’d better pay me tomorrow or I’ll kill your fish. So, in this case, it’s like a threat. If you don’t do it, something bad will happen. Notice how in all of these situations, I’m not saying you had better, no. I’m using the contraction, you’d better. That’s because in speech, the contraction is always best. Unless you want to really emphasize something, make it sound strong. Then you might say, You had better not eat my pizza! But yeah, pretty much, we always just use the contraction, you’d - I’d - we’d. In fact, actually, we often drop the “had” in speaking and casual writing, like with your friends. Don’t write it in an exam. That would be bad. But in spoken English, it’s fine. Don’t worry about it. I better go! It’s late! I need to talk about pronunciation because maybe you noticed, I just said better. “I better go” And I pronounced the “T” like a “D”. That’s like American English… But actually, when you say “I better”, “you better”; you have three ways to pronounce it. “I better” it’s fine. “I better” that’s fine as well. “I better”, that’s a glottal T, and also that is fine. So of course, you’ve got “I better”. You better lose yourself in the music, the moment you own it. Sorry! I have to stop this! Not only is your singing terrible but, I’m the YouTube copyright police! I can’t allow you to sing anymore Eminem! Really? I was having fun! Is that a definite no? Well.. Better not.

So your reply, if the context is obvious; can just be, you’d better not. You could drop the “had”, you better not. Or, even, better not. That’s fine too. Do you think I should order a pizza now? Yeah, I think you’d better, before she eats me.