Hi, here is a paragraph from a diary. “I” am new to the school, and don’t know English very well.
I just found out that we are having a math quiz tomorrow. Mr. Ward has been telling us about the quiz since last week, but I didn’t understand what he has/had been saying.
Which word is proper here, has or had? Thank you!
I just found out that we are having a math quiz tomorrow. Mr. Ward has been telling us about the quiz since last week, but I didn’t understand what he has/had been saying.
Which word is proper here, has or had? Thank you!
Comments
CJ
You have to use Haven't understood.
But if you want to use didn't understand I think Had been is the right choice because you are talking about an action that started in the past before another action in the past .so I go for past perfect continuous.
To me it sounds more natural to say I didn't understant what he had been saying.
Let's see what others tell
Or is it that—it came to me just now—Jim and you think "I" knew about the test by other means (e.g. a classmate told "me" there was going to be a quiz), instead of finally understanding Mr. Ward's words?
Poor Yolanda
When you said "telling us about the quiz", I thought you meant, "instructing us how to do the math problems which would appear on the quiz", not "telling us that there would be a quiz". I answered according to what my understanding was. Apparently, that is not what you meant.
In view of the fact that you wanted to say something else, I would say it like this:
I just found out that we are having a math quiz tomorrow. Mr. Ward has been telling us that we were going to have a quiz since last week, but I didn't understand what he was saying.
CJ