past forms of had better and would rather

[Gorkem Atay]

1. ''She had better go home''.

2. ''She would rather go home''.


What are the past forms of the sentences above? I want the past forms of them without knowing whether she went home or not.

 

[emsr2d2]

Regardless of the purpose of your question, you first need to know that "go to home" is not grammatical. It's "go home".

 

[Raymott]

1. "It would have been better if she had gone home." or "... better had she gone home". "She would have done better to go home."
2. "She would rather have gone home."; "She preferred to go home".

I don't think the first has a direct translation. That is, there's no past tense of "had better", and it's better just to say what you mean rather than try to form a past tense from the present. So, there are probably lots of other ways of saying these.

 

[Gorkem Atay]

I got it, but in your examples which are "It would have been better if she had gone home." and "She would rather have gone home.", the result is clear. She did not go home. But I asked whether there are any past forms of them without knowing results. But I think I understand what you mean, instead of using them I can say for the same meaning:

''It could be better for her to go home''

Am I right?

 

[Raymott]

Yes, I understood that. But if there no direct past forms, there are no direct past forms that don't say whether she went home or not!

One problem with the past, is that we know the outcome. 1. "She had better have gone home." You could claim that to be a past form of 1. But it implies that she didn't go home. So, what I was suggesting was to throw out the entire "had better" (and "would rather") business, and express the concept in another way that meets your needs.

The problem with "It could be better if..." is that the speaker is not sure, as in "It might or might not be better if ..." But you want certainty. "It would be better if she went home." That is also present conditional.

It might be better to put the past tense elsewhere. "It was felt that she had better go home"; "I thought that she had better go home"; "I thought I had better go home". You can do this because there has to be a context in which someone had that opinion.