What would be this sentence in past tense?
"All you would have to do is (...)"
->
All you would have had to do was (...) or all you would had to do was (...)?
The first one doesn't seem to be correct to me but it does fit the following pattern:
You would say it -> you would have said it
You would buy it -> you would have bought it
So would have+3rd form of verb, that's correct, right?
Search from various English teachers...
Answers · 6
1
The first one is correct. "All you would have had to do was...." When speaking, most people would abbreviate "would have" to "would've" :)
You could also say "All you had to do was..." The difference is that "would have had to" is conditional. "Had to" is not. To use examples:
You decided not to go skydiving. Someone says to you "All you would've had to do is jump out of the plane!"
You leave the dinner in the oven too long and it burns. Someone says to you "All you had to do was take it out after 30 minutes!"
The phrase "All you had to do was..." is usually used to express confusion when someone fails to correctly perform a simple task. "All you would have had to do was..." can be used that way too, but it can also be used in a more kind way, like trying to convince someone to try something that they decided not to do.
Hope that makes sense and helped a bit.
0
The first one is correct from my knowledge, had is the past tense of have
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