Tenses

Tommyensrany difference?
[G]Tom will be a teacher. This is a reference to the future.
[H]Tom will have been a teacher. This refers back to the past and extends into the future, but the sentence seems incomplete without more information in it. For example:
By this time next year, Tom will h

Tom will be a teacher - this is normal for the future. It's a prediction, but stated as a certainty.

Tom will have been a teacher - this is "set" in the future, referring to something that was in the past (from that point of view in the future) but not past right now. In another three months, Tom will have been a teacher for five full years.

Tom had been washing

Tom had washed his car by the time I came home. - More common

I agree with GG, and I think I'd use already to accentuate the time sequence and perhaps give a better flow to the sentence:

Tom had already washed his car by the time I came home.

I agree that this might not be the most typical example for the usage of these two tenses, however to me the past perfect continuous does something in this sentence that neither the past continuous nor the past perfect simple can do: It suggests duration and also that, although the car-washing activity had stopped, there was still evidence of it when I came. In other words, perhaps the c

Yankee however to me the past perfect continuous does something in this sentence that neither the past continuous nor the past perfect simple can do

Hi Amy,
why not?

When I went into his room, it was obvious that my five-year-old son had been eating cookies in bed.
When I went into his room, it was obvious that

Kooyeen

Yankee however to me the past perfect continuous does something in this sentence that neither the past continuous nor the past perfect simple can do

Hi Amy,
why not?

When I went into his room, it was obvious that my five-year-old son had been eating cookies in bed. Thi

Thanks!
Anyway, I've been thinking about those sentences, and I think those examples are tricky. In other words, I believe if you changed the examples and keet the same tenses, your comments would be different.
Hmm, ok, I'll do it for you

«When I asked Amanda, she told me that she had been cheating on her boyfriend.
Now, I'd say she was still cheating»

It's not evident from "she had been cheating". Furthermore, she probably was no longer cheating.

EDIT: "had been cheating" may have been derived (via tense-shifting) from either "have been cheating" or "was cheating". Will the meanings differ? I think, yes, the

Ant_222«When I asked Amanda, she told me that she had been cheating on her boyfriend. Now, I'd say she was still cheating» (I see it differently) It's not evident from "she had been cheating". Furthermore, she probably was no longer cheating. EDIT: "had been cheating" may have been derived (via tense-shifting) fro

Goodman:
«I think you have some valid points but I see it slightly differently.»

In the quotation of my post you wrote the same phrase in blue. But it's Kooyeen's words (which I only quoted) that you coloured red, as if they were mine!

Kooyeen said: "Now, I'd say she was still cheating", and I disagreed.

«To my understanding, (unless I have learned it wrong) past pe