Tagged Questions
7
votes
4answers
298 views
Usage of 'had been' or 'were'
I was doing an exercise. I completed the sentence as following.
If you were my child, I would have demanded that such an irresponsible teacher be fired.
But the answer given in the book is ...
3
votes
5answers
154 views
Right tense for conditional event in nondescript time?
What is the right tense to describe an event that might have occured, be occuring or occur in the future, if (not) for something that happened in the past?
Unike, in the examples, which anchor the ...
3
votes
2answers
199 views
Perfect tenses in conditionals
Why does one sometimes use the perfect tense in conditions of the first type? Say,
I will do something if you have done something.
I did something when he had done something.
instead of,
...
2
votes
2answers
299 views
Past perfect sentence in “I would have killed the snake if I had hit him…”
Is the following a correct past perfect sentence?
I would have killed the snake if I had hit him hard with a stick.
2
votes
3answers
989 views
past perfect + would have + ed-participle / past simple + would + infinitive
Could you clarify difference between sentences:
If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses
If I asked people what they wanted, they would say faster horses
...
2
votes
1answer
14k views
“have been” versus “had been” in questions [duplicate]
Possible Duplicate:
How do the tenses in English correspond temporally to one another?
"I can tell that he's not English, but I wouldn't had been able to tell that he's french if you didn't ...
3
votes
1answer
911 views
Speculative conditional: Why does it use the past tense or past perfect tense?
We use simple past to state a hypothetical present situation that we would like to speculate about (If they were here, I would be happy), past perfect for a hypothetical past (had they been here, I ...
