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 #2 (permalink) Tue May 06, 2008 18:54 pm 2 verbs in participle? |
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Hi Nessie
The verb tense you're referring to is called 'the past perfect'.
In your sentence it would be perfectly OK to say 'we noticed how old he had become' because the word 'before' makes the sequence clear (i.e. you noticed something before you met him).
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Yankee
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 Nessie
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| #4 (permalink) Wed May 07, 2008 6:45 am 2 verbs in participle? |
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| Quote: |
| The verb tense you're referring to is called 'the past perfect' |
Isn't the past perfect an aspect and not a tense? |
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Molly
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| #5 (permalink) Wed May 07, 2008 11:49 am 2 verbs in participle? |
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As I'm sure you know, Molly, things such as the 'present perfect' and the 'past perfect' are frequently referred to as 'tenses' even though linguists will tell you that they're technically not 'tenses' per se.
However, I think you'll also agree that nobody refers to (or should refer to) 'had noticed' or 'had become' as 'the past participle'.
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Yankee
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| #6 (permalink) Wed May 07, 2008 12:39 pm 2 verbs in participle? |
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| Yankee wrote: |
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As I'm sure you know, Molly, things such as the 'present perfect' and the 'past perfect' are frequently referred to as 'tenses' even though linguists will tell you that they're technically not 'tenses' per se.
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Surprisingly, when I was chatting on ICQ (an internet jabber program) with an American teen, I asked this question: "when do you use the past simple and present perfect tenses" and the reply was "there's no such thing as perfect tenses, you can have a perfect body, but perfect does not refer to grammatical tenses at all". |
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Lost_Soul
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| #7 (permalink) Wed May 07, 2008 18:39 pm 2 verbs in participle? |
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Hi Alex
I hope you asked him if he knew what a 'perfect infinitive' was. 
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| #8 (permalink) Wed May 07, 2008 18:42 pm 2 verbs in participle? |
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| Quote: |
| As I'm sure you know, Molly, things such as the 'present perfect' and the 'past perfect' are frequently referred to as 'tenses' even though linguists will tell you that they're technically not 'tenses' per se. |
I never refer to them as tenses. Why do you? |
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Molly
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| #9 (permalink) Wed May 07, 2008 18:49 pm 2 verbs in participle? |
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One reason is simply to avoid confusion -- since the vast majority of my students have been taught that the present perfect, for example, is a 'tense'. My students are not linguists. They simply need to be able to write, speak, listen and read in English.
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Yankee
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| #10 (permalink) Wed May 07, 2008 20:17 pm 2 verbs in participle? |
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| I'd say being taught about aspects is of benefit to those who want to understanding English usage. If you want to avoid confusion why not drop the word "tense" altogether? Just talk about the past simple, present simple, present perfect, etc. |
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Molly
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| #11 (permalink) Wed May 07, 2008 20:37 pm 2 verbs in participle? |
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Most of the time I just say 'the present perfect' or 'the simple past' and so on.
In my experience, however, linguistic jargon is mainly useful for linguists. For the average person doing a once-a-week English course at work, for example, the last thing they want to spend (waste) time on is "official" linguistic terminology and jargon. I would lose customers if I did that. Such students get along just fine with what they have already learned to be the names of 'tenses' in English.
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| #12 (permalink) Thu May 08, 2008 5:29 am 2 verbs in participle? |
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Yeah, I agree with Amy. The last thing I would like to be doing in class is to be learning linguistic mambo-jambo. I (and most people who's learning English) just wish to speak the language. I'm really not into linguistics  |
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Lost_Soul
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| #13 (permalink) Thu May 08, 2008 5:32 am 2 verbs in participle? |
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| Quote: |
| Such students get along just fine with what they have already learned to be the names of 'tenses' in English. |
And the ones who haven't yet learned such? What would you teach those? And, do you also not teach the terms mood, voice and person? |
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Molly
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| #14 (permalink) Thu May 08, 2008 5:37 am 2 verbs in participle? |
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| lost_soul wrote: |
| Yeah, I agree with Amy. The last thing I would like to be doing in class is to be learning linguistic mambo-jambo. I (and most people who's learning English) just wish to speak the language. I'm really not into linguistics |
Does that include not wanting to learn the terms mood, voice and person?
And why do we have choices such as these?
I was living in London for five years.
I lived in London for five years.
How can the word "tense" help me make a choice between those? |
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Molly
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| #15 (permalink) Thu May 08, 2008 5:48 am 2 verbs in participle? |
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| Molly wrote: |
| Does that include not wanting to learn the terms mood, voice and person? |
Well, I learnt them in school, but in the school where I studied, our English teacher sucked like a vacuum cleaner. She didn't want to teach us, instead all she did was put us down for every little mistake. I didn't like her, in a word.
But I'm going off on a tangent. Back to the point, I have a friend from the USA and he knows little about English grammar but this does not impede his ability to speak better than me, a guy who can tell "its" from "it's", "they're" from "their" (he sometimes can't, by the way). |
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| million dollars' worth | Present perfect: past or present? |
... something we never have again, I know... I guess I really really know..