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Mkyol Posted 18 years ago
Grammar

past perfect?

0"It had been a long time since I last ate."02br
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00This is past perfect right? Is 'a long time' modifying 'been'? What's the grammatical term for that?02br
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00Edit: also kindly tell me if it is how you usually say it.. Normally in a past perfect sentence the 'activity' mentioned after 'had' comes before in time than the other activity in the sentence with a simple past form of a verb. But in the sentence the activity of eating comes before in time instead, which is kind of weird, and some explanation would be nice. In the end, I would like to shift "It has been a long time since I last ate" to the past.02br
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00Thanks.0-
  

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5 Answers
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0If you're01b00 hungry now02b00:02br
01i00It 01b00has02b00 been a long time since I last ate.02i0-
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0 01blockquote
01cite10Mkyol12cite10... shift "It has been a long time since I last ate" to the past.12blockquote
10 It had been a long time since I had last eaten.01blockquote
01cite10Mkyol12cite10This is past perfect right?12blockquote
10Yes.01blockquote
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0 But I guess you can say "It had been a long time since I last ate" instead of "It had been a long time since I had last eaten", right? 0-
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0Sure, Kooyeen, if you've just eaten. If you're still hungry and have not eaten in a while, then you could not say that.0-
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0Thanks for the replies all.0-
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