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Anonymous Posted 16 years ago
Grammar
How to use"until" in past perfect tense?
Hello, native speakers!~
My name is Tang, and I am teaching English in a middle school in . Embarrassingly, I don't know which of the following sentence is right:
A. We didn't disturb him until he had finished his job.
B. We hadn't disturbed him until he finished his job.
I guess A is right, but from "new concept English-book 2,"Lesson14, I found the following sentence:
->I had not understood the problem until he explained it.
If I say” I did not understand this problem until he had explained it.”, would it be wrong?
Really confused, please help me out.
My name is Tang, and I am teaching English in a middle school in . Embarrassingly, I don't know which of the following sentence is right:
A. We didn't disturb him until he had finished his job.
B. We hadn't disturbed him until he finished his job.
I guess A is right, but from "new concept English-book 2,"Lesson14, I found the following sentence:
->I had not understood the problem until he explained it.
If I say” I did not understand this problem until he had explained it.”, would it be wrong?
Really confused, please help me out.
Top answer
A. -- OK B. ' Past perfect makes clear the time order of an earlier event .
- A.
- -- OK B.
- ' Past perfect makes clear the time order of an earlier event .
- -- As with B above, another past action is required.
- -- This is fine.
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4 Answers
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A. We didn't disturb him until he had finished his job.-- OK
B. We hadn't disturbed him until he finished his job.-- No good unless a 3rd past action follows: ' When dawn arrived, we still hadn't disturbed him until he (had) finished the job.' Past perfect makes clear the time order of an earlier event.
I had not understood the problem until h
B. We hadn't disturbed him until he finished his job.-- No good unless a 3rd past action follows: ' When dawn arrived, we still hadn't disturbed him until he (had) finished the job.' Past perfect makes clear the time order of an earlier event.
I had not understood the problem until h
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Remember : Use the Past Perfect Simple for the action that happened first and the Past Simple for the action that happened second.
We didn't disturb him (2nd action) until he had finished his job (1st action) RIGHT but B is wrong
I had not understood the problem (1st action) until he explained it (2nd action). RIGHT
Hope I'm right.
We didn't disturb him (2nd action) until he had finished his job (1st action) RIGHT but B is wrong
I had not understood the problem (1st action) until he explained it (2nd action). RIGHT
Hope I'm right.
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I'm having issues trying to understand this as well.
Someone wrote:
"We didn't disturb him (2nd action) until he had finished his job (1st action) RIGHT but B is wrong
I had not understood the problem (1st action) until he explained it (2nd action). RIGHT"
Well, the fact that I avoided disturbing him is prior to him finishing his job.
As regards the s
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