Sorry to butt in like this. I'm sure Clive will give his expert advice but let me try to explain it the way I see it (from a non native speaker's point of view). Regarding the New York sentence, since both the living/working

Hi Clive, Thanks for taking the time on my query. I guess what I had in mind when I used "had taken computer science for 2 semesters.." rather than the simple "took" was the deliberate intent to emphasize the duration I had

I told my mom she has gotten a ticket for not speaking English. OR I told my mom she had gotten a ticket for not speaking English. What's the difference between the two sentences? I know one is present perfect and the other past perfect but

Hi. Thank you so much. Do you think the present tense and past tense in the part I am about to mention as I wrote it in the first post in an impossible (incorrect) combination? I am talking about the part "Have you worked hard at some

English is a difficult language to adopt as a second language for so many reasons. Your point about learning Japanese is irrelevant to this 'why English is difficult' conversation. In places like Canada, did you know the reason for having

You can wait more than 45 minutes before assuming no one will answer your post. Some of us even sleep at night. In another thread you said you didn't understand the perfect tenses. There is the present perfect tense: I

I'm still somewhat confused regarding the subjunctive mood. Suppose we are talking about two different people, two "hes", is this correct? (1) He is rich, and he wishes he were rich. (2) He was rich, and he wishes he

Thank you very much for the reply. I'm afraid my question is about the past perfect. When you want to talk about something in the past, like, you are talking about an old lady's life story, and you want to talk about when she was, say,

N Hi, Often, minutes are written in terms of 'who said what'. eg Tom said that a reservation was made for 12th. September. The active voice is often seen as simpler and more direct. eg Tom said that he made a reservaton

I am a secretary who loves to use past perfect tense in my meetings e.g. Had Met or Had been. Is this ok? I remember using it in a particular context "COK and Sodality had met. A memorandum of understanding had been drafted." I