Questions tagged [tenses]
A set of forms taken by a verb to indicate the time and/or completeness and continuance of the action in relation to the time of the utterance.
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What tense is "there are/there aren't"? [closed]
In what tense is "There aren't any cherries"? Is it in the present progressive ?
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What is the grammatical tense of the sentence "Someone stop that person"?
I was discussing with some friends the grammatical tense of the verb stop in the sentence:
Someone stop that person.
Despite searching online we did not find a consensus/solution, so we have decided ...
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What is a modal verb, and more specifically, is 'repeat' one? [closed]
If English doesn't use any future tenses, how exactly are modal verbs defined and used?
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Can we mix past perfect, present progressive, etc. in conditionals? [duplicate]
Is it acceptable / possible to mix past perfect, present progressive, etc. in conditionals?
In particular: The 2nd conditional (apologies to those who reject this common but by no means universal ...
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I have a question for my test [migrated]
--- while their mum was taking a nap on the sofa.
A) Jane and Jack will be taken aback by the news
B) The kids were enjoying themselves
C) They have been playing computer games
E) The children have ...
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Someone "is" or "was" the first female surgeon if they're still alive and still a surgeon? [duplicate]
I'm proofreading something but --- you might say Obama "was" the first black president since he's no longer President. Or maybe it is "is"? Dead people are generally always "...
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"As Puss has told them earlier, they all say the Marquis." How should I correct this sentence?
I was told that this sentence is so wrong, and after reading some related threads here, I now understand that "earlier" should be used with past tense. So is it okay if I change the sentence ...
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Can "who will visit" in "The number of people who will visit Japan this year will reach 19 million. " be simplified into "who visit" [migrated]
(1) It is estimated that the number of people who will visit Japan this year will reach 19 million.
(2) It is estimated that the number of people who visit Japan this year will reach 19 million.
Am ...
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Do Interrogative Negative forms in the simple present tense imply only two situations?
Is it correct to say that, in English, when you use the Present Simple tense in the Interrogative Negative form you are either implying the negative or just confirming the affirmative (depending on ...
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Hello, I need help in understanding the grammatical tense of this phrase [closed]
It is easy to see how primitive warfare might sometimes have beneficial environmental effects; it is not clear how they could amount to a cause of primitive warfare.
Could you tell me, please, what ...
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Is the tense within this sentence consistent? Confusion between 'ed' and 'ing'
I have a few sentences in my resume that have been prompted by an auto-resume reviewer that my tenses may not be correct.
Reading the sentence back to myself, it does feel a bit off now that they said ...
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In the sentence “Generic Band releases their new album next month.” does the use of “releaseS” indicate present tense or future tense? [duplicate]
I think it’s present tense because of the active (?) verb ‘releases’, but I’m a little thrown because the action will be in the future. An answer for another question said when the action takes place ...
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Incorrect use of 'had' in this past perfect tense
I saw this fill in the blanks question in my exam:
Before we ___ our meal, he ___ us back to work.
There were four options to this question:
finished, had ordered
have finished, ordered
had ...
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Why was the past tense used here? "I died an X"
In 2023 movie, Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, this conversation took place when a character was dying:
Dying character: (holding Scott's cheek) Thanks, Scott. You always were a brother to me.
...
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Is it correct to start a hypothetical or future tense sentence with "if I am..."? [closed]
My partner frequently starts sentences with "If <present tense statement>" where the present tense statement is referring to a future or hypothetical situation.
Examples:
"If I ...
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Bit as a p.p. form of bite (v)
The Merriam-Webster dictionary lists bit as an alternative past participle form of the verb bite, with bitten.
bite (1 of 2) (verb) (ˈbīt); bit (ˈbit); bitten (ˈbi-tᵊn) also bit; biting
As far as I ...
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"When" + future perfect usage
A Scots friend of mine corrected my usage of future perfect in this construction:
Right, see you in five years when your mother tongue will have taken another ten steps back.
Maybe the construction ...
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What tense is this rhetorical question? [closed]
I'm having trouble figuring out the tense of this sentence:
What heart wouldn’t fill with awe upon hearing the events of her birth?
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after movement have ceased (Steinbeck)
John Steinbeck, Travels with Charley (1962):
"That discussion, however, did not go into the life span of journeys. This seems to be variable and unpredictable. Who has not known a journey to be ...
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Use of Past Perfect if an interlocutor doesn't know about a moment in the past
We use Past Perfect to speak about actions before some moment in the past.
What if my speaking partner doesn't know about a moment in the past?
I had done everything.
(I don't mention it, but in ...
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"Get" vs "are" usage and tense in informal writing [duplicate]
I am helping a friend edit a manuscript for an informal reference book about music. There are several instances where I am perceiving a mixture of tense but I'm not sure how or whether to correct it. ...
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"It was time they began/had begun"
Which version is the correct indirect form of this sentence:
The boss said, “It’s time we began planning our work”.
1. The boss said that it was time they began planning their work.
2. The boss said ...
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What's the role of "won't have had" in this sentence? [duplicate]
What is the role of "won't have had" here? In this sentence it doesn't look like a reference to the future, although it is exactly what the will-form usually indicates. Based on the context, ...
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Would a nit-picking grammarian object to "Probably best you don't know"? [closed]
From Boston Legal (or your everyday conversation):
"He and I will be going on a little vacation."
"Where?"
"Probably best you don't know."
Being short for "It ...
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Execution By Hanging [closed]
When referring to execution by hanging, it is grammatically correct to say:
The offender is to be hanged.
Instead of:
The offender is to be hung.
When referring to historic methods of execution, ...
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Correct usage of 'had' [closed]
I was recently studying a paragraph in which I came across a sentence, which was below:
The British king, Charles I, had inherited a very difficult financial situation from his father.
However, I ...
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Present simple or present continuous when the subclause is present simple?
I've prepared the following gap-fill exercise for my students (I'm in the EFL teachers programme):
Lilli ……………… (sit) on the saddle while her friend Victoria pushes her from behind.
However, I'm not ...
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Why does the simple present tense change to the past progressive (rather than the simple past) in some cases?
Consider:
"What are you up to right now?"
"I hope to secure an appointment with her."
As opposed to:
"What were you up to just then?"
"I was hoping to secure an ...
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Meaning of the sentence "The thieves had run away when the police arrived."
This is from the Quirk's CGEL section 4.24 - The past perfective:
Adverbials of time position, when used with the past perfective, can
identify either T2 or T3. Placed initially, they often identify ...
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Why is 'have' used instead of 'has?' [duplicate]
In the sentence,"God have mercy on us," why is 'have' used instead of 'has?'
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There seem to be vs there seem to have been
I'm having trouble understanding the difference between those two, as I recently had to write a sentence "There seem to have been some missing keys" relating to receival of aforementioned ...
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Why is this sentence from The Great Gatsby grammatical?
There's a bird on the lawn that I think must be a nightingale come over on the Cunard or White Star Line.
According to my very limited knowledge, shouldn’t it be "which came over" in place ...
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Managing Verb Tenses in a Statement with Multiple Clauses
Since English is not my first language, I often struggle with verb tenses when the statement involves multiple clauses. The advice to stay consistent sometimes doesn't work. For example:
Because ...
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Help with writing in the past tense. What tense to use when showing a continuous future event?
Alden cleared the China from the breakfast table, smeared with bits of eggs and grits, and stacked them next to the sink. Just because she had a full time housekeeper, didn’t mean she was an animal.
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Past and present perfect tense in scientific articles
There are various questions about this, but none that I found provided me with a satisfying answer. My problem lies mainly in the part of the paper were I introduce the necessary background, and in ...
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Past simple or present perfect simple? [closed]
Why did he change his name?
Why has he changed his name?
Why did he change the spelling of his name?
Why has he changed the spelling of his name?
I'm curious whether the present perfect versions are ...
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Is it idiomatic to shift from present progressive to present simple within single sentence? [duplicate]
One of my friends while writing a passage wrote the following sentence that contained both present progressive and present simple tense within a single sentence:
Road accidents are happening because ...
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Does the following sentence mean I perfectly accept other today? [closed]
Does the following sentence speak of a process, a movement toward acceptance?
Or does it imply the speaker is already perfectly accepting today?
I create a world of radical acceptance by accepting ...
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The use of "would have + [participle verb]" in the narration of the movie Reprise (2006)
The narration starts like this:
Their manuscripts would have been accepted immediately.
They would’ve been published the next fall.
Finally, they would’ve been authors.
My first thought is, because &...
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"Devalued" vs "Devaluated"?
I have just come across the use of the word "devaluated" in a published book and am wondering if this is a legitimate word as I can't find this past participle in any dictionary. I would ...
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How many tenses are there in the English language? [duplicate]
There are past, present, future, continuous, if, conditional.
It's too complicated. Where can we get a complete website to learn all these once and for all?
Not to mention there are other grammar ...
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In a construct "but it is the X who ... that Y" can ending "s" really be omitted on a verb Y belonging to a 3rd person singular noun X in this case?
The ocean's depths hold secrets yet to be discovered, but it is the sailor who braves the storms that uncover them.
This sentence was generated by ChatGPT and the bot claims that ‘uncover’ verb ...
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Correct usage of the verb 'told' in the sentence "I did it the way he told me to"?
I'm trying to learn how to use the auxiliary verb did in sentences. I stumbled upon this webpage, which has a few sentences enlisted with the correct usage of the word did. One of those sentences is I ...
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What is the tense type of "I was keen to work with him"? [closed]
As per my understanding, if a particular sentence starts with "I was", then it could be a past participle tense.
But the past participle follows this format,
subject + was/were + verb + '...
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Can we use adverbs of frequency with "will"? [closed]
I’ve seen this text in which "sometimes" has been used with "will". I assume the sentence is explaining a habit, and I wonder why it’s been said with "will".
Sometimes I'...
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Which tense is apt for the verb 'criticize' in the given sentence? [duplicate]
Spot the part of the given sentence containing an error.
The article that she wrote for the last week's Sunday Supplement fairly criticizes the abuse of mobile phones.
The answer provided to me is '...
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What is continuous tense of wear? | metal parts wearing or metal parts wear [closed]
I'm not a native English speaker, and I have a doubt about the continuous tense of the word 'wear'.
What is the correct sentence out of these two?
Lubricant oils help to reduce metal parts wearing.
...
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What tense should be used for the verb "film"? Why? [closed]
I was presented with this question on a test paper:
_______(film) in various parts of China, Unexplored Land presents the great diversity of China's ecosystem and throws fresh light on the concept of ...
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Do you always put the conjugate in the same tense when using "and"? [migrated]
when is this right ?
for example : i eat and ... (sleep) a lot .
in this case i m going to conjugate sleep in the present simple since the verb before and is conjugated in the present simple . but i ...
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'Help determine' vs 'help in determining'
I'm not a native English speaker and I'm having trouble understanding the usage of a preposition in the following example
These models can help regulate and determine pattern formation
These models ...
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