ESL General English Grammar Questions

Re: Present tense and past tense- is/ mean

bhikkhu1991 — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 10:10:42 GMT

Hello Marius Hancu,

I would like to sincerely thank you for your kind reply. The reason why I did not continue with my previous post is to try to comply with the rules of this forum. In Rule 6, it sipulates:

6) Posts may be removed for any number of reasons; please keep your posting on topic and relevant to the thread you are in. If you wish to start a new discussion, or change the subject, please post a new thread in the appropriate forum.

I hope that my explanation will clear your doubt.

I also hope that what you have taught on how to stress 'is, mean and wish' is correctly applied here.

Thank you.

With best wishes.

Re: Present tense and past tense- is/ mean

Marius Hancu — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 12:13:02 GMT

You posted already once on this matter. Why didn't you continue there?

You can use both tenses, be consistent:

is, mean, wish (if you still hold the same beliefs, and want to stress that)

was, meant, wished (if you want to make reference to the previous e-mail, document, and want to clarify it)

Present tense and past tense- is/ mean

bhikkhu1991 — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 11:24:32 GMT

A partial letter,

Dear ...,

I am sorry that my question is too ambiguous. Actually, I mean that I wish to have a lifetime of happiness other than a lifetime of unhappiness.

Hello,

1. Can I use the present tenses for the underlined words 'is' and 'mean' in my explanation?

2. Can I use the past tense 'was' to replace the underlined word 'is' and the present tense 'mean' unchanged because my question was recorded in a document?

Thank you.

With best wishes.