By Plurals, Tenses

Re: What's the rule(s) for I was vs I were?

was or were In the ordinary past tense of the verb to be, was is the first and third person singular: I was late and were is the second person singular and the plural: You were right. It is not acceptable in standard English to use were for the first and third person singular: I were late,...

Mistakes made by Chinese Learners

Hi everyoneI just wondered if anyone could help - I have to write a profile of a chinese learner of English (completely made up). In it I must put any difficulties that the learner has in learning English as an L2. I have got so far:Intonation transfer from L1 may cause them to be perceived as...

Re: correct sentences or not

I see nothing wrong with any sentence. No plural in the first sentence for the very reason that parental example is regarded as a theme. In sentence No. 2 the speaker hopes now and therefore uses the present tense. The subjunctive isn't always used after as if/as though even though it is...

Re: Reported Speech

Jean-Francois, the only "trick" to reported speech is that sometimes the tense shifts back. It doesn't have to if the essential truth of the issue is still true, but it's never wrong to shift it back either. You can use the "that" - you are inconsistent in using...

Re: sell out vs sell out of

Hi Hoa ThaiThere were a number of details that I considered in my last post. These included the following:- Sold out used strictly as a verb vs sold out used like an adjective - Verb tense- Using sold vs sold out (particularly in combination with the word 'all')- Word order (i.e. Does...

Re: Was or Were?

Hi,I think it's definitley "was". The other, "were", doesn't make sense there. There are no conditionals, so it's just a past tense. And it agrees with "it" because that's the way "it's/it was" is used idiomatically:It's John who decided to go.It's my parents who decided to go.It was Jenny who...

Re: These days/Recently/On these days,

Hoa Thai wrote:Hi,Below are phrases that use 'In'. To me, the first one is correct. For the rest, I think using 'In' with plural 'days' is okay, except the last one, which looks and sounds odd. Hi Hoa ThaiThe original question was not simply one of using 'in' with 'days'. There are plenty of...

Re: Can I use 'stati' as the plural of status? Statuses sounds horrible!

Not all words work the same way! The plural of cactus is cacti, but I've learned here the plural of status (in Latin) is status, with a different pronunciation. (And we're not talking in Latin anymore anyway.) Just like sing takes sang in the past, while bring takes brought, not all word with...

Re: grammar questions

1) Are my sentences correct but with a different meaning? I didn't quite get the nuance between the 2 prepositions. Would you please explain the difference again? a) "The plays had been / were performed THROUGHOUT the next ten years"-- many times /every year in that periodb) "He had acted /...

grammar questions

Dear teachers, Would you please help me with the following difficuties? 1) Are my sentences correct but with a different meaning? I didn't quite get the nuance between the 2 prepositions. Would you please explain the difference again? a) "The plays had been / were (?) performed THROUGOUT /...