If I had met him five years ago
"If I had met him five years 'ago', my English would be different."
Is it right? I doubt that is grammatical. Practical English Usage says ago is used with a past tense and a time expression to 'count back' from the present; to say how long before the present something happned. Before is used in the same way (with a past perfect tense) to count back from a past moment.
Top answer
" It is correct: "ago" is intended as relative to now, and "had met" is not a true temporal past perfect tense, but an "unreal" tense describing an imagined or hypothetical situation. Compare "It was the summer of 1995. " Here you are "counting back" relative to a past moment, so "ago" is not correct -- you must use "earlier" or "before" (I prefer "earlier").
- " It is correct: "ago" is intended as relative to now, and "had met" is not a true temporal past perfect tense, but an "unreal" tense describing an imagined or hypothetical situation.
- Compare "It was the summer of 1995.
- " Here you are "counting back" relative to a past moment, so "ago" is not correct -- you must use "earlier" or "before" (I prefer "earlier").
- I recommend that you do not use quotation marks to highlight words (in this case 'ago') in sentences that you are asking about.
- This is because it can appear as if the quotation marks are an actual part of the sentence.
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anonymous"If I had met him five years 'ago', my English would be different."
It is correct: "ago" is intended as relative to now, and "had met" is not a true temporal past perfect tense, but an "unreal" tense describing an imagined or hypothetical situation. Compare "It was the summer of 1995. If I had met him five years earlier/before, my English would hav
0The sentence is correct if you remove the quotation marks from ago.
CB
EDIT: GPY beat me again.
0
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