By Modal verbs, Past perfect

Hi Pres1dentYou should break up long posts such as this one into several short posts. That way it's much easier for other people to comment.I've made suggestions. Some of the sentences in these exercises don't sound terribly natural, so there are also suggestions in places where there were no...

Let's spread out the issue a little bit: ____ O ____ Type 2. Basic forms. a. If we caught the 10 o'clock train, we would (could, might, etc.) get there by lunch-time. b. If I came into a fortune, I would give up smoking. c. If I knew how it worked, I could tell...

Hi, Can you confirm my surmises for the sentence below? The mistake which the leaders and John made 1) could have been prevented, if they 2) had been cautious and asked for help. 1) Is the main function of modal verbs like 'could' to express advisibility and the modal verbs do not affect...

CalifJim wrote:The sentence is complicated by the fact that you can make the past of can by using could, but you have to make the past of must by using must have. And must have been is not a past perfect tense, by the way. It's one of the modal perfect tenses, most of which have special...

The sentence is complicated by the fact that you can make the past of can by using could, but you have to make the past of must by using must have. And must have been is not a past perfect tense, by the way. It's one of the modal perfect tenses, most of which have special uses. Let's...

Thanks a lot again for all your help. "Would" seems to be the most confusing modal verb in English grammer and trying hard to learn the correct usages of this mysterious word . As Nona said. they might have used "Would have had to" to express the uncertainty, in that case, Can we use "had had...

Julielai wrote: Just out of curiosity, Mr. P, how do you distinguish a native speaker who's learned a non-standard form of English from a decent non-native speaker? (e.g. How can you tell if a speaker born in India, Singapore or other Asian countries is native?) Hello Julie I'm not sure I...

Hello all, I am applying to take a CELTA course and they gave me an application task to do before I can enter the program. I am having some difficulty with some parts and was wondering if some one would be willing to help me. I use msn messanger under hpainter24@hotmail.com feel free to add me...

True? "Yesterday President Bush said that America was dominated by British soldiers." Huurm.. English is a quite queer language. Hi Paco, Again, if you want to believe that the sequence of tenses "rule" describes how language actually works, then you're going to be severely disappointed....

Hello Eladio I said that a letter was written to her. I said that a letter had been written to her. I said that a letter would be written to her. I said that a letter was going to be written to her. I said that a letter had to be written to her. I said that a letter might be written to her. I...