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naryana
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need your help
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Hey dear friends , one of my students , who is obviously quite inquisitive , asked me a question relating to grammar structure.At first, he thought it was a big dog.When he realized it was a big tiger.Her question was : why should we say thought and not was thinking?I told her that you have to understand the general meaning of the sentence then figure out which tense to use .. but my answer wasn �t satisfactory... |
4 Sep 2012
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jhewkin
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Because it is past simple - the thought happened and then finished when he "realised". Remember Past simple - action started and finished in the past.
Jenny |
4 Sep 2012
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naryana
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Thank you , Jenny. I really do appreciate your quick reply. |
4 Sep 2012
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sofi_dy
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Because it �s not an action interrupted by another action (That �s when we use past continuous and then simple past).
It �s an action that ended in the past and after that he realised it was a tiger.
You should also check the grammar of the whole sentence.
In my opinion it �s correct to say "At first, he thought it was a big dog. Then he realised it was a big tiger."
or it �s also correct to say. "He was thinking it was a big dog when he realised it was a big tiger."
I don �t understand the "when" in your sentence.
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4 Sep 2012
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yanogator
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I agree with sofi dy about "when". It seems that you should have "Then" at the start of your second sentence, unless it actually was an interruption, in which case it �s a comma, then "when", rather than a period.
Remember that the continuous tenses emphasize an activity over time. We do use them sometimes with "think", if we want that emphasisis.
At first, he was thinking it was a big dog. Then he realized it was a tiger.
However, the "at first" pretty much destroys the idea of thinking over time, so that isn �t too good a choice here.
Bruce |
4 Sep 2012
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MoodyMoody
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Personally, I would use the continuous tenses with "think" only in the sense of cogitating or ruminating over something. "I was thinking about what to get my mother for her birthday when my husband suggested a Kindle," for example. (She loved it, by the way.)
I would use only the simple tenses with "think" in the sense of believe. In the original example, I �d stick with "At first, he thought it was a big dog, but then he realized it was a tiger." (Not a big tiger; a big tiger would be 300 kg!) The past continuous just sounds wrong to me here. |
4 Sep 2012
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naryana
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THANK YOU dear friends for your help...am really impressed and grateful for your thorough explanation...May God bless you ;) |
5 Sep 2012
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