I didn't know he was/is such a good person.
Which is correct in the above sentence. Is/was and why ?
(Assume the person is still alive and is still a good person)
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2Grammatically, both are perfectly valid and defensible. But idiomatically, native speakers would invariably choose to match past tense didn't know with was in this specific context.– FumbleFingersCommented Oct 28, 2015 at 17:53
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Present or Past tense to describe a past condition which is still present?, Tense change: previous actions on something that's currently true– FærdCommented Oct 28, 2015 at 18:17
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5Actually, better is this: english.stackexchange.com/questions/7964/…– NadjaCSCommented Oct 28, 2015 at 18:33
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1 Answer
Both are correct depending on the context
I didn't know he was a good person: He could have moved to a new town or you could've just met him and thought he was trying to do something wrong, not realizing he was being nice, and get yourself in trouble
Though I didn't know He is a good person is probably better because you could've just met him.
