Man: Do you want to do something different next week?
Woman: Such as?
Man: Well, I was thinking of having a Halloween party, would you like to come?
Woman: Oh, yes please!
Woman: “Would” is also used for hypothetical imaginary situations in the present and the future. This is known grammatically as the 2nd conditional, and is usually in a sentence structured with “if” + past simple, then would + verb. Listen to these examples:

Man: If I had more money, I would hire a disco for the party, but, I think I’ll have to have it at home.
Man: If I were a wizard like Harry Potter, I would put a million pounds in my bank account.

Woman: “Would” is also the past of “will”, it is often used in this way in reported speech, that is, when we repeat what somebody has said. Now listen to this example:

Man: Yippee! Sue says she will help me with the decorations for the party.
Woman: Sorry, I wasn’t listening, what did you say?
Man: I said that Sue said that she would help me with the decorations for the party.
Woman: Another use of “would” is to talk about things that happened repeatedly in the past, but don’t happen now. It is similar to “used to + infinitive”, but a little more formal, and when we use “would + infinitive” we mention a specific time in the past. Listen to these examples:

Man: When I was a child, I loved Halloween, I would play “trick or treat” for hours with my friends.
Man: In the old days, everybody would wear masks on the 31st of October to confuse the ghosts.

Woman: Now let’s listen to these words in the dialogue: pay attention to how they are used.
Halloween has always been a big celebration and an excuse for a party in America & the British Isles, but, in recent years it has gained popularity in other countries too. So imagine you want to throw a Halloween party, where would you start?
Woman: What would you like to do next week?
Man: Well I’d like to have some fun, it’s Halloween!
Woman: Oh, I forgot. What shall we do?
Man: Well, I’d like to throw a party.
Woman: Really? What ideas have you got?
Man: Well....,if I had the money, I would like to hire a disco, but, it’s expensive, so I guess, I’ll have to have it at home. I would like to have everybody in fancy dress though, and organise lots of games.
Woman: Sounds good. Would you like me to help you organise it?
Man: Yes please. Let’s make a list of everything we need to do, there isn’t much time.
Woman: OK, well, we need to decide who to invite, and tell them its fancy dress, so they can organise their costumes. We need to get some decorations and decide on Halloween games, then there’s just the food, drink and music to take care of.
Man: You make everything sound so easy.
Woman: I get that from my grand mother. When I was young, I used to help her organise family parties, she would have me write down everything she wanted to do as she spoke, so she wouldn’t forget anything. We used to have a lot of fun.
Man: Fantastic! So let’s start. Who shall we invite?
Woman: Give me the list and I’ll start calling.
Man: Ok, here you go. Start with Rosaria, she’s a great girl to get a party started.
Woman: Heh, I spoke to Rosaria, she says she’ll be there, and call the rest of the gang if you want, so we can organise the other stuff.
Man: Sorry, what did you say? I couldn’t hear you, I’ve got the stereo on.
Woman: I said that I’d called Rosaria and she said that she would definitely come to the party and also she would call everybody else for us.
Man: Great! This party is really going to rock!