Search results for 'tag:Essays tag:Simple past' matching tags 'Essays' and 'Simple past'

Re: 1)I sat on the terrace, drinking coffee.

Belly — Fri, 04 Jan 2008 07:39:50 GMT

Hoa Thai wrote:
Belly wrote:

Ok I understood that drinking implies a continuous activity, but it may violate with the parallelsim, may not it?

Not really! This sentence contains the vilolation: "He sat at the terrace and was drinking coffee." One clause uses the simple past tense and the other uses the past progressive tense. In your previous sentence, 'drinking' is a gerund (a noun form of a verb). 'Drinking coffee' is noun phrase acts as an adjectival component.

Belly wrote:

According to my grammar book, could isn't used in context like this. Could is used when we generally referring to the past.

I don't know what you mean. Please quote your book.

Belly wrote:

I'm with you in the last question, Hoa Thai, I don't know why my teacher corrected so. Notwithstanding, you can see my original work at http://www.englishforums.com/English/CorrectEssay/zwlkz/Post.htm. It's my orginal work befored it was modified by my teacher.

Could you show what I shared with you to your teacher and ask for his opinion?

My take:

1. 'go to (vocational) school' represents a task students do.
2. 'go to a (vocational) school' represents an undefinitive selection.
3. I am troubled by 'go to (vocational) schools' and would like to hear others' opinions.

Take care,
Hoa Thai
EDIT NOTE: I will look at your other post and share with you my opinion later.
EDIT NOTE #2: I saw 'school' instead of 'schools' in your other post!

I haven't seen that we can use past and past continuous in like that. I sat there drinking coffee. What is an adjectival component? I sat there drinking coffee, which occurs first? which later?

Yes, the original was school, but my teacher corrected it into schools

Re: 1)I sat on the terrace, drinking coffee.

Hoa Thai — Fri, 04 Jan 2008 06:51:07 GMT

Belly wrote:
Ok I understood that drinking implies a continuous activity, but it may violate with the parallelsim, may not it?

Not really! This sentence contains the vilolation: "He sat at the terrace and was drinking coffee." One clause uses the simple past tense and the other uses the past progressive tense. In your previous sentence, 'drinking' is a gerund (a noun form of a verb). 'Drinking coffee' is noun phrase acts as an adjectival component.

Belly wrote:
According to my grammar book, could isn't used in context like this. Could is used when we generally referring to the past.

I don't know what you mean. Please quote your book.

Belly wrote:

I'm with you in the last question, Hoa Thai, I don't know why my teacher corrected so. Notwithstanding, you can see my original work at http://www.englishforums.com/English/CorrectEssay/zwlkz/Post.htm. It's my orginal work befored it was modified by my teacher.

Could you show what I shared with you to your teacher and ask for his opinion?

My take:

1. 'go to (vocational) school' represents a task students do.
2. 'go to a (vocational) school' represents an undefinitive selection.
3. I am troubled by 'go to (vocational) schools' and would like to hear others' opinions.

Take care,
Hoa Thai
EDIT NOTE: I will look at your other post and share with you my opinion later.
EDIT NOTE #2: I saw 'school' instead of 'schools' in your other post!

Re: "...creative writing that I have written/had written/wrote."

Clive — Mon, 11 Jun 2007 04:35:43 GMT

Hi,

I wonder what are the differences between these sentences? Here are a a few brief comments.

The repetitious use of the gerund 'writing' + the verb 'write' in the same sentence is poor style. Let's talk about an essay instead.

This is an essay that I have written. Suggests the essay has some importance now. eg Perhaps you want me to read it.

This is an essay that I wrote. Suggests more that you are just focusing on the past, telling me about the writing as a simple past event of no real relevance or importance now.

This is an essay that I had written.The past perfect focuses on this past event in relation to some other point in the past which you have not mentioned in this sentence.

Best wishes, Clive

short essay - pls correct this :)

Anonymous — Thu, 22 Feb 2007 22:32:01 GMT

It was cold, winter morning. When I woke up, I started to looking for my watch. When I finally found it, it showed up 7.55 a.m. On first lesson I had PO test and I couldn't was late for it. Test will start at 8.00 but I have needed 10 min. to got ready for going to school and next 15 min. to arrived there... Fortunately when I arrived to school at 8.20 and talked with teacher, he said "Everything will be ok, but you must write this test tomorrow." Next day I woke up at 7.00AM. I learned everything yesterday afternoon and I thought âI'll pass this exam for A!â. Everything changed when I saw what builders did with bridge... Their renovate it and nothing informed about that yesterday! They closed all paths and pavements. I must ran around and pass another bridge to got to school. Fortunately I was at 7.58AM in school and I passed that test for B+!

Hi!

This is my first post on this forum!
I need help with my homework... Subject is: "The day you woke up late for an exam/test". I must use times: "simple past", "present perfect" and "past continuous"... This is my "first steps" in English and i need help with that short essay...

"PO" - "protection preparation", dunno how translate this... It's school subject in PL...

Re: Simple past or past perfect?

Mister Micawber — Sat, 21 May 2005 14:49:24 GMT

It is more formal to use the past perfect in reported speech, speaking of a previous event. I would suggest you use it in essay-writing, but not worry about it in conversation, as either is acceptable, and 'came' is probably the more common.

Re: It Happens in a Perfume Store

abbie1948 — Wed, 20 Apr 2005 23:12:20 GMT

Hi, Ali.
This is a really nice essay, and I know exactly what you mean about perfumes! You need a little atTention to your grammar, word order and tenses, so let's try and help out.

You have used the present continuous for a lot. (the 'ing' form). When we write a story, it is usual to use the simple past ("I went to the shop") or the simple present ("I go to the shop")

The present continuous is used to describe something that is happening about NOW. So, I can say "I am writing this to Ali", because my fingers are right at this momnet typing the words. But by he time you read it, that will be in the past, so you would say "Abbie WROTE this to me"

My sense of SMELL is ruined whenever I GO inTO a perfume store. Unwillingly I sniff QUANTITIES of scents and THIS MAKES my nose ache. Unlike cutting onionS, however, my eyes are still intact, and that is a good point.

Perfume salesmen are brave enough to fill the atmosphere with fragrance in an earnest attempt to attract customers. Thus, the feeling of being entangled seizes me as soon as I step toward any perfume store.

The shapes and the colors of the perfume glasses are expected to do the other part of the job. There you are LIKELY to find egg-, snail- or tulip-shaped glasses, but the most probable thing is that you will find a perfume contained in a glass SHAPED LIKE A womanâs body. And that is a VERY ENTICING METHOD of sales promotion.

The first step I take inside a perfume store IS to make sure that I AM DEFINITELY in a menâs perfume store. I know that every product has its counterpart in a womenâs perfume store. I learned that fact from the advertisements that WE encounter daily in the newspapers. They sometimes take a whole page. Every company produces two editions of each product, and each edition is designed to match the targeted sex, YET I was ONCE told that they are ALL poured from the same tap. The difference is seemingly IS the shape (OF THE BOTTLE?) Generally, I am still not sure of that.

Second, I EXAMINE the perfume glass carefully. The French three-word cluster "EAU DE TOILETTE" must appear, written or engraved, on the outer wall of the glass. IT IS WELL KNOWN AND WE APPRECIATE the quality PROVIDED BY French brands.

It is AN IMPRESSIVE fact that many brands of perfumes have no expiry dates shown on their glass walls, so there is no fear of the possibility of being poisoned.

Sometimes I go to the perfume store WITH a particular brand in my mind, WHICH is I HAVE either before or, OR HAS BEEN RECOMMENDED to me by a friend. In such a case, it is going to be easy to buy a perfume. Otherwise, I have to try different names or brands, and this is the HEART of the problem. As the perfume salesman begins to sprinkle more than one brand of perfume GENEROUSLY on the backs of my both hands, I feel that all the smells are becoming mingled, and I CANnot distinguish them any more. So, I ASK him to spray on the sleeves of my ROBE, each sleeve with a DIFFERENT brand. Then, I have to memorize WHICH BRAND IS ON each sleeve. It seems a very complicated process, although I consider it a test for memory.

Trying to make it easier, some perfume salesmen use thick cards that keep the smell for a quite long time. THESE ARE PROVIDED BY perfume producers. But unfortunately, I HAVE discovered that some of those salesmen misuse the cards. They sometimes exchange cards for perfumes other than the original ones that correspond with them. And that triggers another problem

Re: Story with a diverse use of tenses

jack112 — Mon, 18 Apr 2005 22:44:40 GMT

I think you can see from the above para that it makes just as much (if not, from your point of view - more) sense in the simple past

Even when I'm writing essays? This is okay?

But how come in your writing you jump from past to present tense from time to time?

So if I want to refer back to Ann, what tense am I suppose to use? In some paragraphs the author uses present and in some she uses past? How do I deal with this when I want to talk about a paragraph?

Re: Shows up OR show up

Andrei — Sun, 20 Jun 2004 17:29:52 GMT

Mirium, I appreciate your informative reply.

I hope all my following sentence are grammatically correct regardless to any aspects of context or sense. Let me know if you found a flaw.

He may look up the word in the dictionary.

He might look up the word in the dictionary.

He could look up the word in the dictionary.

He would look up the word in the dictionary.

He will look up the word in the dictionary.

He has looked up the word in the dictionary. [ present perfect]

He looked up the word in the dictionary. [ simple past]

He had looked up the word in the dictionary before writing the essay. [ past perfect]

He will have looked up the word dictionary by 10.00pm this evening. [future perfect]