In Past tenses^x, Grammar^x

CalifJim has written an excellent summary here. May I just add a couple of observations of my own. CalifJim wrote: You may be driving yourself crazy trying to make every sentence with a present perfect tense fit into one those three categories! I have written six letters this morning. This...

Hey CJ! 1) Excellent post, that makes it a lot clearer. Question, when you want to express I wish plus a past tense, you always do it like this: "I wish he had stopped calling me." rather than, "I wish he would have stopped calling me." Right? 2) I too have been thinking about it. I did...

Are they really equivalent to each other? CalifJim wrote: I saw the movie. = I watched the movie. I have seen that movie. = I have watched that movie. I would say that in the present or future tense there is really not much difference between the two. However, in the past tenses, I...

Hi again, Zara, Grammar is important, but don't worry about it every day so much that it makes you unhappy. Just learn a little bit, everyday. The Past Tense is a good place to start, because we talk about the past a lot. Why don't you try to write some past tense sentences, and post them...

.... -0- ok, let's put it this way: GB is nothing more than a module in the generative grammar, to be put on a par with such other modules of the theory as X', Case theory or the Theta Theory, although it has been quite incorrectly treated as though it were the whole of the Grammar...

1. Can and its past tense, could , only cover the present and past tenses. For the future and perfect tenses, one has no choice but to switch to be able to . You can swim fast today. You could swim fast yesterday. You will be able to swim fast tomorrow. You have been able to swim fast until now....

For # 1- I'd say "what were you waiting for yesterday? "? instead of just a simple past tense. # 2 is awkward. I don't think people really speak that way. However, there are contexts where "yesterday" can be placed at the beginning or at the end of a sentense. i .e. I went to a movie with...

Hi there, I was doing this excersise on grammar, and came across this sentence: I lost my keys; I cannot remember where I last (see) them. The assignment is to fill in the appropraite form. I believe the present perfect is the correct form, which would result in this: where I have...

Hi, What is the meaning of like in those sentences,please?and when do we use it in speech if it is common? Many young people constantly use 'like' in their speech patterns. It fills a pause while they think, it makes their speech less decisive and thus more polite in a sense, and most of all...

Guest wrote: My son, a grade 7 student in a French school, is struggling with English grammar. Unfortunately, on this one, his English speaking mother cannot decide which is correct. the short answer is, whatever the teacher says is correct. as you might surmise from the thread so far,...