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Anonymous

#185838 Thu, 19 Jan 06 05:36 PM

What is the difference between these two sentences?

1- Yesterday, it took Scott half an hour to return from the supermarket after doing his shopping.

2- Yesterday, it took Scott half an hour to return from the supermarket after having done his shopping.

Thank you for your help !

Zoe

Anonymous

Difference between

Philip

#185844 Thu, 19 Jan 06 05:50 PM

Anonymous wrote:

What is the difference between these two sentences?

1- Yesterday, it took Scott half an hour to return from the supermarket after doing his shopping.

2- Yesterday, it took Scott half an hour to return from the supermarket after having done his shopping.

Thank you for your help !

Zoe

To me, they mean the same thing. Just "too much verb" in the second sentence.

Philip

Joined on Thu, Jun 23 2005

USA Pacific Northwest (Seattle)

Veteran Member (6,264)

At reise er at leve! - H. C. Andersen

Verbs, Difference between

TammyBaby

#185845 Thu, 19 Jan 06 05:54 PM

Sentence 1 seems more ok to me! I've never use "after having done something". It's too long and I think it's not grammatical.

- Tammy

TammyBaby

Joined on Wed, Jul 27 2005

Winterland - land of cold, memories and dreams...

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Zoe Paradise

#185847 Thu, 19 Jan 06 06:01 PM

Thank you for your quick response! Do you think both sentences are correct ?

Zoe Paradise

Joined on Thu, Jan 19 2006

New Member (01)

Clive

#186066 Thu, 19 Jan 06 11:18 PM

Hi Zoe,

1- Yesterday, it took Scott half an hour to return from the supermarket after doing his shopping.

2- Yesterday, it took Scott half an hour to return from the supermarket after having done his shopping. Just as the perfect tenses focus on 'the past in so far as it has importance for a later time', so does the perfect participle. We see this more clearly in a sentence like 'Having worked on his homework for three hours, he felt very tired'. In your example, it's just a subtle difference in focus, in emphasis you might say. It shows a little bit more which time frame the speaker has in his/her mind.

Best wishes, Clive