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Anonymous Posted 17 years ago
Grammar

Questions on tenses

Hi.

1. Which is correct?

I thought if the clothes are/were/had been too expensive, then we can buy/could buy/could have bought them and give to Jane for her birthday.

2. Is this use of a present perfect tense correct? Do you consider the word "today" specific like the word "yesterday"?

I have received the book today.
  

Top answer

Hi Anon 1. You could say this, for example: - I thought if the clothes were not too expensive, then we could buy them to give to Jane for her birthday. Here is another possibility: - If the clothes had not been so expensive, then we could have bought them and give n them to Jane for her birthday.

— Yankee

  • Hi Anon 1.
  • You could say this, for example: - I thought if the clothes were not too expensive, then we could buy them to give to Jane for her birthday.
  • Here is another possibility: - If the clothes had not been so expensive, then we could have bought them and give n them to Jane for her birthday.
  • 2.
  • It depends on the meaning: - I received this book (earlier) today.
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4 Answers
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Hi Anon

1.
You could say this, for example:

- I thought if the clothes were not too expensive, then we could buy them to give to Jane for her birthday.

Here is another possibility:

- If the clothes had not been so expensive, then we could have bought them and given them to Jane for her birthday.

2.
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Thank you. I think the part that follows the word "thought" should be something in a past tense and what follows is past in form and I think it is a second conditional. And as a second conditional, I think it denotes a hypothetical situation in the present. I think it is past in form but I am not sure as a clause that is supposed to denote a hypothetical nature in the present-time setting i
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Hi Anon

I chose the were and could because the sentence began with "I thought". You can compare the verb forms in this sentence to the forms you find in reported speech. In other words, you might look at the sentence as the reported form of a type 1 conditional.

If you used are and can i
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Thank you for your explanations.
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