If you want to use "I hope" and "I wish" correctly, you just need to memorize these two phrases: I hope I can... I wish I could... You may be wondering: why do English speakers use the present tense for "hope" and the past tense for "wish"? The secret is that "could" is not really past tense. It looks like the past tense, but it's secretly something different. It's the "unreal" aspect. In other words, it expresses something that's not really true, or not very likely. We use "wish" to talk about things that are impossible, or things that probably won't happen: I wish I could fly. I wish there were more hours in the day. I wish I'd studied something a little more practical. The differences between hope & wish. On the other hand, we use "I hope..." when there's a good chance that something might happen. You can use it to say what you want to happen in the future: I hope this cake