I wish!

In Spanish you have a single lovely word that expresses so much: ¡Ojalá!. In English, to express the same one-word idea succinctly, you've got to say something like "I wish!" or "I hope so!".

There's a difference here, though. "I wish!" (sometimes "If only!" to express a stronger desire) refers to something that isn't really possible. For example, if someone asks you if you have tickets to see a World Cup match in Germany, and as it's very late you have no possibility of getting any, you might answer "I wish!" or "If only!".

However, if someone asks you if you think that Spain is going to win (talking about the future here) the World Cup, you would say "I hope so!". If you said "I wish!", you would be implying that they're going to lose. Now you don't want to do that, you'll jinx the team!

In a future post, we'll look at some more details and grammar of "wish".