Search results for 'tag:Speak english tag:Past tenses' matching tags 'Speak english' and 'Past tenses'

need help

Aznlilboiz — Wed, 25 Oct 2006 04:33:02 GMT

Can any one help me to proofread and fix some grammar for me. I have serious problems with past tense verb. thank you.

The time when I felt out of place, is when I came over to America. The first day I arrived here, it was cold and snowing. I didnât have much of friends and most of the time I stayed at home. I played with my cousins most of the time or going out with my parent. I start thinking, is America a good place for me? A month later, I started going to school. The school I went to is called Harvard-Kent in Charlestown. I started in the 1^st grade. Everything looks strange to me and I felt scared and really want to go home. The first day, not a lot of students talked to me. Most of the students are Asian American and they speak English and Chinese very well. I scared I canât communicate with them, because I didnât know English. A lot of stuff I needed to learn all over again.

Two weeks gone by and I started enjoying being in school. More classmates are started to chatting with me. All of them are very friendly and nice. The teacher pulled a lot of times in me because I needed to catch up with other students. The most of the time that I am having trouble is the homework. My parents always helped me with the math, but they canât helped me with other homework. Most of time I had an incomplete homework, but the teacher still let me pass and let me went into the 2^nd grade. I started have a feeling that made me really want to stay and kept learning.

Re: confused about past perfect... again

Lunchbox — Sun, 15 Oct 2006 03:07:48 GMT

I think that's correct. The past perfect may have been a stylistic choice to emphasize the historic element. But I do think the simple past tense would work. English grammar can get a little squishy here and there (meaning that a lot of writers bend the rules for style), which can create a lot of confusion even for english speakers.

Ask an english speaker in the street to explain the "past perfect" tense and 99% of them won't have a clue. The more complex tenses rightly cause confusion for non-native speakers because they even confuse native speakers.

Argggh! Why does everyone assume right away that I'm a non-native speaker? I am bit touchy when it comes to this subject because, yes, I may have once been an immigrant, but I grew up here in Canada, have lived in Vancouver since I was 6, speak English better than my mother tongue, and I deserve to be called a native speaker as much as the next "real" native speaker on these boards. Just because I post on this board asking qusetions relating to grammar, does it mean I'm any less deserving of being termed a "native speaker"?

I know I'm probably taking your comment a bit too far. But my reason for posting on these boards is simply to learn more about the correct way to use words. It really offends me when people automatically assume that about me. Perhaps I should find another board that simply answers questions regarding grammar and whose members don't make snap judgments about others' English level.

And it's not like any of the wordy, convoluted grammar explanations some people like to give on here could be understood by anyone with less than a near native, at least, advanced grasp of English anyway. I find myself always having to carefully pick apart what some of you say. If this board was really aimed towards helping English-learners learn the language, then the "moderators" or "teachers" should put more effort into writing clear, understandable prose as opposed to showing off their writing skills.

I am late & I was late

Anonymous — Sat, 26 Aug 2006 01:15:06 GMT

Dear everyone,

I am a Chinese, and I can not speak english well, but I like English, here I have some questions about English that I want to ask you. Thanks for your help and your support at first.

Sometimes, I don't know how to use Past tense and Now tense. Please see the following sentences:

1. I am late & I was late & I was/am forget/gorgot this things that......

I don't what situation will I use above sentense.

Thanks for you again.

Tu Yu

Re: The confusing teaacher

nona the brit — Wed, 05 Jul 2006 08:34:37 GMT

Overall points. Don't forget to end all sentences with a full stop/period/question mark. You overuse 'understand' in contexts where 'learn' would be better.

I've made a few corrections for you but otherwise spelling errors in red. Grammatical errors in blue. Parts that need rephrasing/do not make sense/a different word choice in yellow.

I am depressed

I always get problem speaking English.

It is very hard to speak English fluently

I canât express my opinions, ideas, or whatever is inside my head comfortably.

Vocabulary is the greatest problem.

No self confidence

However, Iâll try.

I was typing when the teacher asked what you were doing and wheter you were typing the lecture material or doing something else. I said that I was typing the lecture. Then she asked us not to type. She said that we could copy the material and we were asked to listen to her talk only.

I was confused. How could she prohibit us to make a note. In a classroom, students are encouraged to make a note what the teacher teach. The more diligent the student, the more he gets appreciation, eventhough appreciation is not the target. And I have the same opinion. Our target is understanding. In my opinion, making a note by computer is one step infront of one by ballpoint. Documents in computer can be re-arranged, sorted, freely cut and pasted, deleted or added, so that the contents are built on a specific manner according to our understanding. This process is almost impossible if we make a note on a book.

And she said about copying the material ?

Yes, absolutely. It should not be a question, because it has been traditionally done, every students knows automatically what they should do when a material in Powerpoint is infront of them. And it was also what teachers mean when they made a material in power point. So, the question was not understandable. (It sounds as though she issued an instruction, she didn't ask a question).

Then she said just listening to her in addition to copying the material :

You know that what a teacher said was not exactly the same as the material. Furthermore, the material was not complete. It contained short terms, words and sentences which were points of lecture. In turn, the points would be explained orally.

I couldnât guarantee that everybody could catch the points without listening to their explanation. And understanding the points didnât guarantee that they would remember them in another time. Thatâs why we made a note.

Then she said that typing disturbed consentration ?

I didnât think so. We were students. We were here to (You are mixing up present and past tense in this essay. Decide on one or the other) absorb, understand, and remember the lecture, not to discusse it. We could discuss it in another opportunity, when we were not burdened from system judging right or wrong, bad or good, and pass or fail.

The student atmosphere push us to study on that manner.

Furthermore, we understand better by listening and typing compared with listening only. Remember that the first way involves more senses than the second one. The only obstacle was teaching too fast.

Finally, she was the only teacher prohibited us.

By making a note, we try hard, we practice to express our understanding with our own sentences. We donât like becoming a robot. We are alive.

hello guys ^^

Problematicme — Fri, 02 Jun 2006 10:21:42 GMT

hi im problematicme .. tats my alias hehe ~

My real name is Zara and i'm from Singapore ~ i have a problem with my conversational english because im used to speak singlish, or in another term local english .... kinda polluted unpure english ...

hmmm ... im still having some problems with my grammer when speaking the language ... mostly im having a problem with TENSES !!! such as positive past tense , negative past tense , continuous past tense ... etc etc ... T_T

i have a feeling tat the reason my tongue began to numb out when trying to speak english is because im not confident about my grammer and ended up stuttering ...

help ..

sincerely problematicme

To clive

Shabnam — Mon, 13 Feb 2006 04:53:41 GMT

Hi clive ,

Yes , I'm learning Grammer books . Bcoz I'm living in small town so here has no good grammer class . Could u pls tell me how important Grammer is ? If I'm not well in Grammer then I will not be able to speak English fluently ? Actually I know some basic of Grammer . But sometime it's too complicating Present , Present Continouous ....ect .....but I'm trying to learn as much as I can . But I'm difficult learning Past Tense .I can't help with that .

I never heard about native speakers . I have only PC ,with that any help can i get ? ok

Thanks very much clive , I've got new words meanings

Re: I have hoped that

Mister Micawber — Thu, 26 May 2005 07:04:06 GMT

"Since my school days, I have always hoped that I could speak English." -- this sounds fine to me too, Paco.

It doesn't seem to be wrong, just rare. Overall, it is a mystery to me, but I have a feeling that the concept of 'hoping' is often connected with-- obviously-- 'a hope', that is, a discrete event rather than an ongoing desire inside.

The past perfect, 'had hoped', can easily represent a discrete event (prior to another past activity, of course), so we would say 'I had hoped that I would become a doctor, but I discovered that I couldn't stand the sight of blood.' This could easily apply to a single 'hope' that is retained, rather than a continuing feeling. In fact, if we want to express the continuing feeling, we are usually pressed into using the p.p. continuous: 'I had been hoping to meet Dr. Seuss for many years, when suddenly he walked in the door'-- thus showing that the hope was active and omnipresent to the speaker.

These contrasting uses are not so effective in present tenses, because the present perfect has other more common uses than to separate discrete events from ongoing ones. 'I have hoped' seems primarily to suggest the 'continuing from indefinite past to now' interpretation, and 'I have been hoping' seems more to suggest the 'heightened interest/politeness' factor. These interpretations are common in the present tenses, but not so in the past tenses-- I guess because the past is completed fact, and not so affected by courtesy.

Re your hope getting faint-- yes, and I think that is an example of the usual use of the past perfect, eh? The structure says that the hope happened first, then the U.S. visit occurred. It too seems suggestive of the idea that 'a hope' is often subconsciously considered a single event remembered rather than a continuing desire.

Does that get us anywhere?

Subjunctive mood in English

paco2004 — Tue, 08 Mar 2005 20:08:13 GMT

Hello

This is a garbage-like posting written by a poor English learner who has been and still now is agonized by subjunctive things which supposedly underlie English collocations.

My way of understanding English grammar

The English language uses two moods (indicative/subjunctive) and two tenses (present/past). Accordingly, all English verbs including modals and auxiliary verbs have four inflective forms beside finite forms (-ed, -ing). The four are;
(1) indicative: present / past
(2) subjunctive: present / past
For example, 'can', 'have', 'be', and 'smoke' inflect the ways like:

(1) indicative: can / could
(2) subjunctive: can / could

(1) indicative: have, has / had
(2) subjunctive: have / had

(1) indicative: am, are, is / was, were
(2) subjunctive: be / were

(1) indicative: smoke, smokes / smoked
(2) subjunctive: smoke / smoked

We have to understand that tense and time are things a little different. The time is a concept to section the time flow in universe. There are three times: past, present, and future. This concept of time, especially that of 'future' is the one that can be owned only by the modern world where many people feel rather sure they can live next year. Contrary to this, the tense is a concept owned by the people who lived in the remote past and created languages. In such remote past, I think, people must have been unable to be sure they could live in 'future', even tomorrow, because their living environment was so harsh. So 'future' wouldn't matter a lot to them. It is why many languages including English basically lack verbal forms for future. Anyway 'future tense' is not a real tense built in the English language. The future tense is something like an extension of the present tense and therefore it should be expressed only with help of the modal verb 'will'. So, we could say, basically, English has only two tenses, present and past.

Mood is a convenience contrived by the old people to differentiate their speech into fact-statements and thought-statements. The indicative mood is the one for fact-statements and the subjunctive for thought-statements. In our modern world people can know many things proved to be facts owing to education and science, and therefore, our speech is more abundant with indicative sentences to compare with subjunctive sentences. But in the old days, people could not confirm many things they know to be fact. And so, I suppose, they would speak a lot in collocations like "Methink + subjunctive mood". It seems nowadays native speakers are getting uncosciousness that they are using the subjunctive mood in their collocations. But still, I feel, it would be better for us (ESL) to know the subjunctive mood underlies many of current English collocations, especially those using modals.

Now this posting is coming to what I really would like to say. I was taught and even now many Japanese students are being taught that the protases in English imaginary conditionals are expressed by 'past tense' (for imaginary present) and 'past perfect tense' (for imaginary past). And teachers told us that, exceptionally in the case the verb is 'be', we should use a special word, 'were'. But I think this way of understanding would get the thing more complicated. I think we (at least me) had better understand that the finite verbs in the thought-statements in English are all in subjunctive forms.
(EX) If I had been a diligent student, I would be able to speak English better. ['had' and 'would' are subjunctives]
(EX) I wish I were a bird. I wish I could fly like a bird. ['could' is subjunctive]
(EX) (I wish) I could kill him. ['could' is subjunctive] I could swim when I was young. ['could' is indicative]

paco

Re: Little understanding of reported speech.

munchun2004 — Fri, 21 Jan 2005 23:18:14 GMT

Thank you JTT, for your replya and your special advice on the English system we have. I am not a native speaker so I have been trying quite hard just to learn how English speaker think when they try to communicate with a Laguage full with rules. Sometimes I just don't get it that in such a short time they could produces so many different pronunciation and rules that occur in on long sentence. I just dont how I should follow them but to try to learn English from the mistake by talking as much as I can with the native speaker.

I think one of the reason I can speak English as fluent as the native speaker is because I have to think twice for the rules of grammar before I can speak out an English statement in a conversation.

I started reading the threads you wrote in the forum after getting the "different" answers you provided. I think you got a point that there are many special cases in English where a person can only learn the essense of English in daily conversation, not from book.

I don't know if you would do this, but could you list out the rules that you would use when you speak with other people about things you saw or heard in the past. Following is my own rules that I got from all the questions I have asked. I hope you could correct them for me.

Rule 1: Use the present tense if what you heard is still related to current situation or yet to come.
Ex: I heard from Jams last week that you are going to join the street race tomorrow.
Ex: I promised him I would finish the job before I go home. (Because of different task in time)
Ex: At first we were hesitate to ask you but finally we decided to tell you that we are against the act too.

Rule 2: Speakers have the choice to choose which tense they want to use (present tense or past tense) if what they heard still relate to current situation.
Ex: I saw from the TV commercial yesterday where it said your company is offering a special deal for all the retailers regardless of how small the retailers are.

Rule 3: If what you learned or found in the past still holds true for you, especially the thing you learned is being put in a clause, you can use the present tense to describe your dicovery.
Ex: Today at school, teacher taught us how to give a proper shut down to our computers if the computers hang suddenly.
Ex: Once I was in Hong Kong with this new friend of mine. While we were in the bar, he told me that if you meet the girl you like, you better introduce yourself to her. He said that if you ask, you have fifty-fifty chance, but if you don't, you don't have a chance.
Ex: My grandpa used to tell me that a good name is what a man can leave behind for over a hundred year. (!!!Do I have to strictly put the sentence in past tense if I am doubtful what my grandpa told me was true? That's why I always wander on which tense I should use in this dilemma of mine.)

Rule 4: There are special cases where you have to ignore the grammar rules from time to time.
Ex:
Marcus: Did you know that people here are suffering from a special disease called the skin painter?
Darrel: I did know that people here are(were also can be used) suffering from the disease. That is why I am here.
Ex: I was wondering if you want to go to theather with me tonight.
Ex: I was just thinking why this lamp post is being put here instead of the darker spot over there. (I am not sure if 'is' could be used instead of 'was'. Could you correct this for me?)

Rules 5: You can use present tense or past tense when you describe scene or story of a movie. This rules also stands for book and websites content.
Ex: I saw the movie last night. It was a movie about how a orphan becomes a greatman through years of struggle.
Ex: I still remember I screamed out as loud as I could when I saw the ghost suddenly turn it head towards the serial killer after the killer has just murdered a new victim. It was horrible.
Ex: I visited a website last week where it says there are currently 5 million people out of job. I think I might be as well as one of them. (!!!I am not sure if I can use present tense here because web contents tend to be changed from time to time. Should I use present tense?)

I think above are the 5 rules of mine that I would use from now on when I talk to other people. If anyone has anything to add to my rules, please write them down in this forum. I am just wondering if JTT has his own rules towards that English grammar. I really hope I could see a totally different view point from JTT.

Re: Modals

pemmican — Fri, 26 Mar 2004 20:18:29 GMT

I don't really understand the question either...

Konstantin, you're referring to the Conditional with your German example.
Indirect speech in German works differently as the Conjunctive has to be used in formal German, which however, can be replaced by the Conditional (would+infinitive).

In English, the tenses have to be shiftes back from direct to indirect speech - .... but NOW - that I've been thinking about this, I might have got an idea of what maj's question aimed at:

The modals "can" and "may" only occur in their forms in simple present and simple past tense, "must" is used in simple present tense only. Now, if you have a sentence including one of these modals, that need to be shifted back, you've to use substitute forms for all of these three modal helping verbs:

Linda: "He can speak English" -------- Linda said he "was able to" (could) speak English.
Linda: "He could speak English" ------ Linda said he "had been able to" speak English.

Linda: "He may go" -------------------- Linda said he "was allowed to" (might) go.
Linda: "He might go" ------------------ Linda said he "had been allowed to" go.

Linda: "He must leave" ----------------- Linda said he "had to" leave.
Linda: "He had to leave" --------------- Linda said he "had had to" leave.

("might" and "could" are commonly usually used as conjunctive forms though, but can express past tense also)

As you can see in these examples, some modals cannot appear in their own forms in special indirect sentences, so maybe that was the problem, maj was aiming at?!

Hope I could help...