Learn English – Difference between “won’t” and “wouldnt”

conditional-constructionsgrammarvocabulary

Here's an example :

"My tastes are very singular, you wouldn't understand"

Now my question is keeping this sentence in my mind we can substitue "wouldn't" with "won't" here right? But what would that mean here?

Best Answer

The simple answer: Yes they are, in this case, interchangeable

The accurate answer:

If we look upon the sentence from a theoretical viewpoint, the two sentences have slightly different connotations.

"Would" is the past tense of will (aux.v.). It is used as a conditionals and to express that something is unlikely to happen. (It is also used in polite requests, but in that case it is, as I explained here, a conditional).

"Will not" implies that there is as reason which hinders him/her from understanding your taste regardless of anything else. E.g.: "I will not tell you why therefor you wont understand it."

But only a pedant would correct you or be disturbed by your usage of "won't"

It is also worth noting that Google Ngram has around as many hits for "you would not" as for "you will not"

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