Won’t vs. Wouldn’t

Won’t

Won’t is a modal verb. It is the short form (contraction) for ‘will not’. It is the negative of the word ‘will’. It is used to talk about future tense. It is always used with an apostrophe (‘).

Examples:

• I will not go to college today – I won’t go to college today.
• We will not talk to him – We won’t talk to him.
• They will not be participating in the event – They won’t be participating in the event.

As we see, we can replace ‘will not’ with won’t in all the sentences.

Wouldn’t

Wouldn’t is the contraction or short form of would not, which is the negative for the modal verb would. Would is used as the past tense of will as well as to express conditional mood, to describe the consequence of an imaginary situation or event. Would is also a more polite way of talking when compared to will (but wouldn’t is not, since it is the negative).

Some examples:

• I would not be late if we had taken our car - I wouldn’t be late if we had taken our car.
• I would not go to the hospital for this small injury - I wouldn’t go to the hospital for this small injury.
• They would wait for us, wouldn’t they? (When we use would not, the correct sentence would be – “They would wait for us, would they not?”)
• I am tired, why wouldn’t you stop for a short coffee break?
• Wouldn’t it be nice if we went for a movie tonight?
• This happened last week when I wasn’t here, so I wouldn’t know about it!

Sometimes, would and wouldn’t convey the same meaning:

Would you like a cup of coffee? or Wouldn’t you like a cup of coffee?

In the above sentence, we can also replace wouldn’t with won’t, the sentence will still be correct:

Won’t you like a cup of coffee?

Both the sentences convey the same, but wouldn’t is a more polite way of conveying the message when compared to won’t. So, through this article, we have learnt two important differences between won’t and wouldn’t:

Won’t is the contraction for will not which is used for future tense. Would is the past form of will, and wouldn’t is the negative of would, and used in situations where something may have happened but did not happen in real.

Wouldn’t is a more polite way of conveying something when compared to won’t.