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Past: He doesn't know how the game is supposed to be played



 
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ESL Forum | English Vocabulary, Grammar and Idioms
Please explain to me "unless" and "if" | Subject/object: The shooting of the rebels caused a lot...
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Past: He doesn't know how the game is supposed to be played Mon Apr 24, 2006 21:29 pm  Past: He doesn't know how the game is supposed to be played
 

-He doesn't know how the game is supposed to be played.

1-What are you talking about? He has won two gold medals.
2-What are you talking about? He won two gold medals.
(He won them at an unspecified time in the past. Perhaps the speaker himself doesn't know when he won them.)

Are both sentences 1 and 2 acceptable replies to the first sentence?
Is there any difference in their meanings?
navi
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Past Mon Apr 24, 2006 21:39 pm  Past
 

Both sentences have the same meaning, but the tense normally used for an unstated time in the past is the present perfect. Thus, the correct sentence is the first one:

1-What are you talking about? He has won two gold medals.
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Past tense Mon Apr 24, 2006 23:26 pm  Past tense
 

Hi navi,

You asked whether these two were acceptable:

Quote:
He doesn't know how the game is supposed to be played.

1-What are you talking about? He has won two gold medals.
2-What are you talking about? He won two gold medals.
(He won them at an unspecified time in the past. Perhaps the speaker himself doesn't know when he won them.)

Are both sentences 1 and 2 acceptable replies to the first sentence?
Is there any difference in their meanings?


In a sense they are both acceptable. The past simple in number 2 is acceptable because we don't know about what happened previously in the conversation and to my mind it suggests that reference has already been made to a game in the past.

Alan
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Please explain to me "unless" and "if" | Subject/object: The shooting of the rebels caused a lot...
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