ESL General English Grammar Questions

Re: Tense Problem

POLITEJOKER — Mon, 20 Sep 2004 12:59:36 GMT

It's very common to hear Grammatical mistakes in everday conversations.

Some native speakers do make garmmatical mistake in speaking.

It's very good that we can notice it but don't bother too much to think about it.

It could be very confusing.

Re: Tense Problem

elcid — Mon, 20 Sep 2004 05:04:24 GMT

thabk you!

Re: Tense Problem

CalifJim — Sun, 19 Sep 2004 20:11:00 GMT

The impression I get is that the husband is saying:

Since I have quit my job (whatever it was), I now have no job at all. You know what I do now - nothing!

The shorter form of all that is:

I quit, and now you know what I do.

or

I quit, so you know what I do now.

("nothing" is implied.)

Re: Tense Problem

matthewg — Sun, 19 Sep 2004 19:00:29 GMT

The sentence is referring to a habit in the past, so I'd phrase it with "used to."

"I quit, and now you know what I used to do."

Re: Tense Problem

elcid — Sun, 19 Sep 2004 18:50:33 GMT

Actually there was a husband and wife talking to each other.
And the husband leaves his job. Then his wife says that you
have left your "accounting job"(actually it was something else).

Then the reaction of the husband is sarcastic as her wife didnt know
the exact name of her husband's job.

then he says,"i quit and (now) you know what i do".

so this is the actual scenerio. I think it should have been
" You know what I did."

Re: Tense Problem

matthewg — Sun, 19 Sep 2004 18:28:30 GMT

Hi Elcid,

You are quoting the sentence out of context. Please give us more information.

Tense Problem

elcid — Sun, 19 Sep 2004 17:40:42 GMT

I heard the sentence....

1) I quit and you know what i do.

I am not sure whether there was "now " ot not. But my question is shouldn't it be

I quit and You know what i did.

so please help me out.