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Cyrus.achaemenid Posted 15 years ago
Grammar
Simple past tense and Present perfect tense
Hi guys,
Last night,I watched a movie and some questions regarding simple past tense and present perfect tense crossed my mind.
In the movie,peter was peaking on phone and john was listening,after peter had hanged up john said"what did you just say?"
here is my question:
why john used the sipmle past tense? why didn't he use the peresent perfect tense?, shoudn't john have said "what have u just said?"
I say it because the talk between peter and the person on other end of line had just finished.
Thanks alot
Last night,I watched a movie and some questions regarding simple past tense and present perfect tense crossed my mind.
In the movie,peter was peaking on phone and john was listening,after peter had hanged up john said"what did you just say?"
here is my question:
why john used the sipmle past tense? why didn't he use the peresent perfect tense?, shoudn't john have said "what have u just said?"
I say it because the talk between peter and the person on other end of line had just finished.
Thanks alot
Top answer
" ... why john used Why did John use the sipmle simple past tense? He's talking about an action that occurred at a definite point in time (just then) that both he and Peter are aware of, and the fact that a specific event at a specific time is implied means that the perfect tense is not appropriate.
- " ...
- why john used Why did John use the sipmle simple past tense?
- He's talking about an action that occurred at a definite point in time (just then) that both he and Peter are aware of, and the fact that a specific event at a specific time is implied means that the perfect tense is not appropriate.
- The use of the present perfect gives the impression that you are talking about all time in the past, not just the time during which the action of interest took place.
- Almost any question about an event that was just observed by both speaker and listener would be cast in the simple past.
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4 Answers
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cyrus.achaemenidafterpeterPeter hadhangedhung up,johnJohn said, "What did y
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Thank you dude.
One more thing:
My friends Peter and John have come or (came) to my home to watch football and I go to kitchen to make popcorn,when I come back I see peter is gone.now should I say "Where did peter go?" or " Where has peter gone?"
Both hung and hanged are the correct past tense of hang.Aren't they?
Thank you so much cali.
One more thing:
My friends Peter and John have come or (came) to my home to watch football and I go to kitchen to make popcorn,when I come back I see peter is gone.now should I say "Where did peter go?" or " Where has peter gone?"
Both hung and hanged are the correct past tense of hang.Aren't they?
Thank you so much cali.
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Calling a teacher 'dude' is not going to have him running to respond, I think. Where do you people learn this slang and then think that you can use it with anyone?
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