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Anonymous Posted 14 years ago
Grammar

Tenses in a sentense

Hi, I found out I mix up tenses in sentences and I would be glad if you would help me to clear up a bit some of the confusion...

For example,
"There a) have been b) were people who..."
Now I tend to follow up with the present tense ("... who always say that..."), but I think it's rather wrong and actually I don't know what tense should I use after this.

Would you, please, explain this to me?

Thank you a lot in advance.
  

Top answer

You cannot automatically follow these with Present Tense. The tense of the second clause depends of whether you are still referring to something in the past, or now. There were boys in my class who bullied me.

— Terryxpress

  • You cannot automatically follow these with Present Tense.
  • The tense of the second clause depends of whether you are still referring to something in the past, or now.
  • There were boys in my class who bullied me.
  • Here, both verbs are in the Past Tense, because you are referring to actions/events that occurred in the past.
  • compare There were bullies in my class at school who are now in prison for assault.
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1 Answers
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You cannot automatically follow these with Present Tense. The tense of the second clause depends of whether you are still referring to something in the past, or now.
There were boys in my class who bullied me.
Here, both verbs are in the Past Tense, because you are referring to actions/events that occurred in the past.
compare

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